


Two Sons of the Crown

by ravenbringslight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fantastic Racism, Fertility god Thor, First Time, Happy Ending, Jotunheim worldbuilding, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), M/M, Mutual Pining, No Endgame, No Infinity War, Politics, Prophetic Visions, Romance, Sex, Shapeshifting, Sibling Incest, Single Sex Jotnar, Slow Burn, Thorki Big Bang 2019, loki's personal growth, we're going to jotunheim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-01-27 06:36:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21387736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenbringslight/pseuds/ravenbringslight
Summary: After the destruction of Asgard, the Statesman is forced to stop in Jotunheim for supplies. To Loki's shock, the Jotnar welcome him with open arms. He finds out that his blast with the Casket all those years ago did Jotunheim much more good than harm, but Jotunheim is still mostly a shambles, and they need a significant amount of help - help that Loki can provide, for the Tesseract wasn't the only thing he took from Asgard's vault.Can Loki and Thor rebuild the ruins of their people in this once-hostile land while navigating Jotun politics, Loki's long-rejected heritage, and their feelings for each other?
Relationships: Loki/Thor, Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 255
Kudos: 774
Collections: Thorki Big Bang 2019





	1. Jotunheim

**Author's Note:**

> ALRIGHT YOU GUYS THIS IS IT! The monster I've been working on for months. This is by far the most ambitious story I've ever attempted, and I'm so excited to share it with you all. I'll be posting 1-2 chapters a week.
> 
> Thanks to Rai and Elsa for modding the Big Bang and being awesome friends.
> 
> Thanks to Allie for reading over each new chapter for me and listening to me yell a lot.
> 
> And extra awesome thanks to Peach Coke my artist, who did an amazingly beautiful art piece that I absolutely love. ❤️❤️❤️ [see it on tumblr](https://peach-coke.tumblr.com/post/188961600607/thors-arms-still-rested-loosely-around-his-waist) || [see it on Twitter](https://twitter.com/PeachCoke_Art/status/1193667887128567809?s=20)
> 
> Visit me at [twitter.com/thunderingraven](https://twitter.com/thunderingraven) ✌️

_"This is the Asgardian refugee vessel Statesman. We are out of food and water. We are requesting aid. Our crew is made up of Asgardian families. We have very few soldiers here. This is not a warcraft. I repeat, this is not a warcraft."_

Loki stood next to Thor on the bridge, Heimdall and Valkyrie flanking them, and watched the surface of Jotunheim grow closer through the main viewport. They’d been broadcasting the SOS for hours as they approached, hoping that it might soften the Jotnar’s attitude towards them and that they wouldn’t simply be knocked out of the sky before they could even land. Thus far there had been no attack, but Loki still felt on edge. The frost giants had no reason to love Asgardians and many reasons to hate them. Loki himself was several of those reasons.

“I should stay back when we make planetfall,” Loki had said to Thor earlier, when they were making the decision to come to Jotunheim at all. It was no decision, really—they were already down to quarter rations of everything, and the children were starting to get sick, and Jotunheim was the only planet within a month's journey.

“Nonsense. You’re a Prince of Asgard.”

“I tried to kill them all.”

“They don’t know that,” Thor said, and smiled, and clapped Loki on the shoulder, and now here Loki was, not staying back at all, but standing stiff and straight at his brother’s side with his hands clasped behind his back so that he didn’t worry at them.

“That way,” Heimdall said from Thor’s other side, pointing. “Over that mountain range, and then hard north to the old city of Utgard. They’re waiting for us.”

“Aye, sir,” the navigator said.

The area they were flying over was as icy and desolate as Loki recalled from his three other visits to Jotunheim, if “visit” could be a word that applied to his activities: Once to broker the deal to ruin Thor’s coronation, once with Thor to start a war, and once to convince his birth father to participate in his own murder. After the Statesman crossed the mountains, however, the expanse of snow and ice gave way to trees and scrubby grass and winding rivers.

“I didn’t know Jotunheim could be green,” Thor murmured to him.

“Neither did I,” Loki murmured back.

"Jotunheim does have a summer," Heimdall said, sounding as wryly amused as he ever did, which really only meant that the corner of his mouth was upticked a hairsbreadth more than usual.

Loki couldn't help but feel patronized. "I'm sorry that some of us were barred from coming here our whole lives and don't have all-seeing eyes," he snapped, creeping anxiety making him short.

"Peace, Loki," Thor said, but he was fighting not to laugh. "What? It's true," he said to Heimdall's raised eyebrow.

"Jotunheim has a summer and this is the height of it," Heimdall continued, turning back to the main viewport, his tone even and entirely unperturbed. "Though it is colder than the summers we're accustomed to in Asgard, the sun will not set for a month."

"Sounds exhausting," Valkyrie said.

"Sounds bad for business," Loki said.

She snorted. "Your kind of business, maybe."

"Precisely."

"Quiet," Thor said, a command.

Their destination had just come into view. Heimdall had named it the "old city of Utgard," but "city" was a generous word in Loki's estimation. Maybe it had been one, once, a long time ago. Before the war with Asgard, perhaps. Now, it was a half-falling down jumble of stone and ice and the bones of enormous animals, the whole mess slumping pitifully on a spit of land sticking out into the sea. 

An army guarded the neck of the spit, a thousand strong at the least by Loki's quick estimate, the size of the warriors apparent even from this height.

"I take it we're to land there?" Loki said, pointing to the empty grassland on the other side of the neck, and Heimdall nodded.

"Loki and I will meet with them," Thor said, like he had at least five times already. "The rest of you wait here on the bridge—"

"So that we can escape if we need to. We know," Valkyrie said.

“Shall we?” Thor said, turning to give Loki an expectant look.

“I still think bringing me is a terrible idea,” Loki said.

“Your objection is noted and ignored,” Thor said, sounding downright cheerful. Loki wanted to throttle him, but he settled for rolling his eyes and huffing. Thor began steering him away with a hand between the shoulderblades. Loki and Valkyrie shared a look. They weren’t friends, exactly, but they sometimes had an understanding. _Keep Thor safe,_ her eyes said.

As if Loki hadn’t been trying to do exactly that without her help for his entire life. He may try to hurt his brother himself sometimes, but he’d be damned if he’d let anyone else do it. Still, her assistance in the matter didn’t go unappreciated, and the look he returned her promised that he’d do his best.

Thor and Loki made their way to the hangar and stood before the bay doors, waiting for the navigators to land. Loki clasped his hands tighter behind his back and held his shoulders a little straighter. Silently, he cast a small glamour on himself. It was just a simple trick he often used when he wished to go unremarked upon, a way of making people’s eyes slide over him like he was part of the background. As long as he didn’t draw attention to himself at this little meeting, he shouldn’t receive any. If luck was on his side, the frost giants may not even know he had been there at all.

The Statesman settled to the ground with a small jolt, the bay doors opened, and the brothers stepped out of the hangar and onto the ramp alone.

In the glory days of Asgard, the Allfather would never have greeted a foreign court without an entourage to lead the way, but Asgard’s glory days were behind her and Thor had always been short on ceremony. Loki stayed one step behind and to the left and he noticed Thor’s right hand flex on nothing where Mjolnir’s handle used to hang. He was nervous, then, despite his show of optimism. 

The leader of the frost giant army stood ten paces in front of his soldiers, and perhaps twenty paces from the ship. He was at least twice Loki’s height, and Loki had to crane his neck up. It bothered him that he could see more of the underside of the creature’s chin than he could his eyes. He had the craggy face and bald head that Loki had come to expect from the Jotnar.

“Hail, Asgardians,” the leader rumbled.

Thor stumbled over his words. “Hail, fros—I mean, Jotuns—er, Jotnar?”

“Just say ‘friends,’” Loki hissed.

“Friends!” Thor finished, beaming.

The giant gave him a long hard look.

“I am General Angrboda. The Council has given me full authority to treat with you,” the giant said.

Council, that was interesting. Not King?

“I am Thor, son of—”

“We know perfectly well who you are.”

Thor fidgeted for a moment, at a loss, and Loki bit his tongue to keep from jumping in.

“Have you received our distress call?” Thor asked.

Angrboda snorted. “We’ve received nothing _but_ your distress call for nearly a full turn.”

“The Allfather is dead,” Thor said, “and Asgard is destroyed. Our army is gone. This ship you see before you is all that is left of my people. We are civilians, farmers and merchants and families with children. We wish you no harm. All we request is food and water, and any medicine you might have to spare—”

Angrboda had started chuckling as Thor spoke, first quietly, then more loudly until Thor was forced to stop talking entirely. He snapped his mouth shut, jaw clenching in anger, and waited in silence until Angrboda stopped.

“I’m sorry,” Thor said. “I was unaware I’d said something funny.”

“Asgard is requesting aid from Jotunheim. Did you hear that everybody?” Angrboda turned around to face his troops. He raised his arms wide and roared, “_ASGARD_ IS REQUESTING AID FROM _JOTUNHEIM_!” A murmur went up from the soldiers. It quickly grew into a discontent rumble, then into voices raised in anger. They crashed their weapons together and stamped their feet until the ground shook with it.

Loki felt sweat creep down his back despite the chill. He wanted to be anywhere other than here and he wanted to be there _right now_. The Tesseract tugged at him from the dimensional pocket he’d tucked it into. _You could just leave_, it suggested.

Angrboda thrust one arm into the air and closed his fist and the clamor died instantly. He turned back around to face Thor.

“Give me one reason we shouldn’t kill you all for daring to set foot here.”

All traces of Thor’s earlier good humor had fled. “I told you,” Thor began, “we are families, refugees. We just need a few supplies and then we’ll be on our way—”

“Families of those who fought against Jotunheim.”

Thor bristled. “We’re dying—”

“And good riddance!”

Sparks danced at Thor’s fingertips. If anyone had dared cut Odin off as many times as Thor had just been cut off, they’d have died for their transgression. There were a thousand warriors at Angrboda’s back, against only the two of them. If it came to fighting, they’d be hard pressed to keep the monsters back long enough for the ship to take off without them, assuming, of course, that Valkyrie and Heimdall were actually willing to abandon Thor, which Loki privately doubted. No, if it came to fighting, the Asgardians wouldn’t make it out of here without substantially more loss. Tension buzzed sharp in the air. Loki tasted ozone.

_Not now, you idiot_, Loki thought. _Don’t hit it, press it gently_.

“We have a treaty,” Thor ground out.

“You have a well-known disregard for treaties. Don’t you, _Odinson_? I was there when you marched into Laufey’s court yourself demanding blood. I know what you are.”

The sparks at Thor’s fingertips danced up to play around his hands, and Angrboda smiled.

“Will you strike first?” Angrboda said. “I invite you. Please do.”

“I have changed,” Thor said. “The youth who marched into Jotunheim to fight your king exists no longer.”

“I never said he was my king. I am and have always been loyal to my people, despite whatever bloodthirsty tyrant holds the throne.”

Curious. Loki had never considered that there might be Jotnar who chafed under Laufey’s rule. He frowned.

"Then you must understand my loyalty to my own people, and why I must ask you for aid."

Angrboda considered Thor for a long, drawn-out moment. He leaned forward just slightly, his leathers creaking, and spat out a single, over-enunciated syllable.

"Beg."

Loki held his breath.

Thor clenched his jaw. He glared with his good eye.

Angrboda settled back onto his heels, smiling with false pleasantry. "Get on your knees and beg, and perhaps we'll consider it."

"Perhaps if you let us meet with your king—"

"_I said beg,_" Angrboda snarled, suddenly furious, and he unsheathed his sword in one brutal jerk. Behind him, soldiers shifted their stances, hands going to weapons. Thor's lightning crackled up to his elbows.

“Loki,” Thor growled under his breath. “Use your silver tongue and _help me_.”

"Jotunheim does not help Asgardians!" Angrboda cried. He took a step forward, sword raised, face twisted in fury; Thor's eye began to glow as he raised his arms as well, prepared to defend himself. It was all falling apart. Asgard would end here on this gods-forsaken ball of ice.

_Well,_ Loki thought, _I can't possibly make this any worse_.

"Stop!" Loki said sharply. He let his glamour dissolve and his helm materialize, and stepped between Angrboda and his brother, empty palms facing outward in supplication. His hands were blue at the fingertips already, the color rapidly leeching up his hands, up his arms, a crawling wave of cold. He hated it, hated the feeling, hated Thor seeing this, but he didn't know what else to do.

"Jotunheim may not help Asgardians," Loki continued, "but I am not Asgardian. Perhaps you could find it in your hearts to help me." He could feel the blue overtake his face on "me" and suppressed a shudder.

He didn't really expect it to work. He was already mentally preparing two different destructive spells and debating whether now was the time to pull out the Tesseract (and probably lose Thor in the process, and he couldn't think about that, not now), and his mind was churning so furiously it took him a moment to realize what was happening.

Angrboda's sword clattered to the ground. He knelt, fist over his heart and head bowed. Behind him, the army did the same, each soldier kneeling, until Loki was staring dumbfounded out over a sea of bowed heads. Loki looked over at Thor in disbelief. Thor’s lightning flickered and died, and he looked back at Loki with a mixture of shock and some other expression that Loki didn't recognize. He realized he'd never taken his Jotun form in front of his brother before, and suddenly he felt exposed and raw. He turned back towards the kneeling General.

"Your Highness," Angrboda said. "Prince Loki. Welcome home."

*

The change in energy was sudden and complete. Once everyone had risen back to their feet, Angrboda began speaking deferentially to Loki, ignoring Thor completely, asking him how long he was planning to stay, what he needed. Loki, scrambling to show some semblance of equanimity in order to keep up whatever farce was going on, assured Angrboda that he wished only for the food, water, and medicine that Thor had requested.

“Then it shall be done. Please allow me to show you around while my people see to your supplies.”

Loki still wasn’t sure what exactly was happening, but, “Of course,” he said with all the confidence he could muster, then raised his eyebrow at Thor as though he had every right to order the King of Asgard around. Thor raised his eyebrow back and held his arm up over his head with an open palm, their prearranged signal back to the Statesman for “all safe.”

Valkyrie, Heimdall, Korg, and a score of others emerged from the bay doors, blinking in the sunlight. They stayed behind with Angrboda’s quartermaster while Angrboda gestured at Loki to walk at his side towards Utgard's gates. Thor made a move to walk with them, but drew up short at Angrboda’s withering glare. Loki considered leaving him behind for half a moment. He quickly thought better of it. It would be good to have Thor around in case things took a turn for the worse.

And, though he never would have admitted it, he was still a hair nervous, and Thor’s presence made him feel safe in a way that nothing else ever quite did.

“It’s alright,” Loki said. “Let him walk with us. He won’t cause any problems.”

“As you will, Your Highness,” Angrboda said mildly, though the look he gave Thor would have made a lesser man crumble. Thor merely glared back.

Thor gave Loki a look and fell in a step behind them. Oh, Loki was going to get an earful later. He couldn’t deny the petty thrill of ordering Thor around and making _him_ be the one to lag behind, though.

Angrboda paused to speak in low tones with one of his men. Loki couldn’t make everything out, but he heard something about “go on ahead” and something else that he thought might be a name. The subordinate saluted and took off at a ground-eating lope.

The troops parted before them to let them through, and then it was just the three of them walking towards the city.

“We had not thought to see you again,” Angrboda said as they walked. “Our last word was that you were dead. We mourned for half a year.”

“Ah,” Loki said. “Yes. Well. Rumors of my death are often exaggerated. It’s not the first time it’s happened.”

Thor coughed and Loki glanced back at him. “Mourned you?” Thor mouthed silently, and Loki shrugged, equally perplexed, and turned back around.

“And how has Jotunheim been, ah, getting on without me?” Loki said lightly.

“These last six years since the Blooming have been better than the thousand before them combined,” Angrboda said. “The Bifrost caused some damage, it’s true, and a few lives were lost, but it was so clever of you to have worked out how to use it to send the magic of the Casket to us. I don’t know what else could have done it, truth be told. It saved us.”

Loki blinked. His mind whirled trying to make sense of anything Angrboda had just said. The “Blooming,” what was that?—the way Angrboda had said it left no doubt the word was important. And Loki hadn't sent any magic from the Casket though the Bifrost, had he? His memories of that terrible day weren't exactly the clearest. Although... he had used the Casket to freeze the Bifrost mechanism open. He had an image of himself fighting with Thor in the Observatory amidst a tangled tree of ice… Had some of it come through? It wouldn't be impossible, but...

“_Saved_ you?”

They’d just reached the gates, and Angrboda whistled up to the sentries on the walls. Loki didn’t even know why they bothered posting men there. The wall was crumbling, fallen stones littering the ground, great gaps in the structure covered by nothing more than what appeared to be woven nets. The gate itself was in better condition; it was made of giant rib bones from what Loki could tell, as black as obsidian and thicker around than his body. Perhaps they were from some monstrous sea creature. Loki couldn’t imagine something that large thriving on land.

At Angrboda’s whistle, the gates groaned open just wide enough to allow the three of them to pass through. Loki touched one of the bones on his way by and shivered; there was power in there. It was old and buried deep, but present all the same. It hit him all in a rush how vanishingly little he knew of this world he was born in. He snatched his hand back and hurried to catch up with Angrboda. He felt like a toddler trying to keep up with an adult.

They were in the city now. Though it was built on a scale that made Loki feel terribly small, it was just as ravaged as it had looked from a distance; worse than the outer walls; worse than anything Loki had seen outside of centuries-abandoned ruins. There were buildings with no roofs, no walls. Stairways to nowhere. Bridges that ended in midair. The streets were choked with debris and overgrown with scrubby tundra brush. The Jotnar themselves seemed unbothered by it, going about their business like the city wasn’t falling down around them.

Above it all rose a palace on the high ground at the city’s center, broken towers serving as nothing but a reminder of how far they had fallen.

“I know it may not look like much,” Angrboda said, “but the improvements we’ve been able to make since the Blooming have been substantial...come, this way…”

“These buildings,” Loki said, scrambling to catch up as Angrboda began striding away. “They’re made of ice. But it’s too warm for ice right now—”

“Ah,” Angrboda said, and smiled, the first true smile Loki had seen on his severe face. “That’s all the Casket. We would have been able to finish growing the ice already if we had a bit more of its magic, but as you can see we’ve made good progress, even if it has been slow—”

“Wait,” Loki said. Angrboda just kept throwing things out casually like they were merely facts of life that Loki was assumed to know, and not foundation-shaking revelations. “These buildings are _growing_? They’re not...falling down?” Was this the Blooming that Angrboda kept talking about?

Angrboda laughed, and Loki shared a desperately confused look with Thor.

“No, little Prince. They’re quite new.”

Loki inwardly bristled at being called little, no matter how true it was here in this land of giants. “But the streets, they’re in terrible condition—”

“That’s a slightly different story.”

The residents of the city stared at them as they made their way through the streets towards the palace. It was no wonder. The General of the army, a runt half his size, and an Asgardian all walking along together doubtless made for an unusual sight. Loki didn’t think he was imagining the hostility on their faces. He felt like an animal in a zoo, the feeling made worse by the fact that the skin he was wearing felt more like a costume than anything else. Like he was a man in a monster suit.

Even though, in his heart, he knew it was the other way around.

He didn’t want to think about it at the moment. He wanted to get this farce over with, get their supplies, and leave, and never have to turn himself blue ever again in his life.

“When the Casket was stolen from us,” Angrboda began, ”it threw everything into chaos. All of nature cried out at the loss. The land began to suffer. Even the seasons were affected. It’s summer here now, but...in truth, this is the first _real_ summer we’ve had in a thousand years. The long winter, we’ve called it. This is the first time the snow has completely melted here since the war. The destruction you see on the ground is left over from that. We’ve not had time to right it yet.”

“The Allfather’s hand,” Loki said, disbelieving. “Still visible after all this time. But wait, I don’t quite understand. It’s the Casket of Ancient _Winters_, is it not? How can it produce summer?”

“It doesn’t produce summer. It…” Angrboda appeared to be searching for words. “It’s the spark that makes Jotunheim _alive_. It is the life that produces the summer. Without the Casket, we are only a ball of dead ice.”

“If there has been no summer, how have your people survived?” Thor asked.

Angrboda scowled. “Many of us did not, _Odinson_.”

Thor looked as ashen as Loki felt. It was all a blow to the chest. Loki had never known that the Casket was more than just a weapon. Odin had stolen the life force of an entire planet along with the babe he’d kidnapped from the temple. The old man’s greed and heartlessness had known no bounds, it seemed.

_You tried to kill them all as well_, a small part of his conscience said. _How are you any better?_

Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, Loki wondered how his life might have been different. If he’d grown up here, or if Odin and Frigga had told him from the beginning, or if they’d ever truly loved him like their own. Perhaps he couldn’t be loved. Perhaps, denied the Casket like the rest of the monsters, he possessed a fundamental flaw. A millennium-long winter of the soul.

_Fool_, he chided himself, and looked again at Thor. His heart sat strangely in his chest.

Angrboda beckoned them onward. He pointed out more things as they walked. Some more netting of the kind Loki had seen on the outer walls turned out to be ice spider silk reinforced with bloom magic. (“And the spiders are back again, can you believe it! We thought they’d gone extinct—”) There was a market in a place Loki reluctantly called a square, with a handful of stalls selling a sad assortment of cloth, withered sea vegetables, and fish. (“Our first permanent market since the war, and it’s still growing,” Angrboda said proudly.)

Loki began to feel a sort of creeping dread.

Utgard was a ruin, an utter pit. And this giant showing them around with so much pride, this Angrboda, seemed to think it a paradise. How much worse must it have been before, that this was an improvement? And it had been Odin who caused the misery. He who had called himself Loki’s father, and had despised Loki for trying to finish in one fell swoop what he had apparently already set into motion in Jotunheim when Loki was still a babe in arms. 

_At least I tried to do it swiftly. I didn’t leave them to waste away and die by inches_.

His excuses sounded thin even to himself.

And yet, Angrboda was hailing him as a savior. Ascribing good intent to something that Loki had done entirely accidentally.

Despite the surrealness of the situation, Loki thought he was handling it well. Playing along and taking things in stride. Giving off an aura of magnanimous authority. Treading water in this bizarre place until he and Thor could make it back to their ship and blast far, far away from here.

It was the children that finally made him crack.

They were passing by yet another seemingly derelict building when a massive frost giant in a fur kilt stepped out of a doorless entryway, and behind him, in a line, a dozen or so frost giant children carrying books. Their little arms strained to fit around the massive things.

“Step lively!” the kilted one said, pausing to usher them along. “Come, Leikn, do try to keep up.” The last to a child in the back struggling under the weight of their book, who gave the teacher a bashful look before clutching it tighter and hurrying along.

“They look so small,” Loki said, before he could stop himself. They did—smaller than he would expect from a race who regularly grew to a height of fifteen feet. In fact, they were just about exactly the size of Asgardian children.

“That’s because they _are_ small,” Angrboda said, watching the children follow their teacher, his eyes sad. “It isn’t only the seasons that have been affected by the loss of the Casket. Our people have suffered as well. Many of the children born during the long winter are too small. In the past, when we were ruled by a crueler hand, such children were left to the cold. Now… If we were to do that, we’d have no children left at all.”

“They’re like me,” Loki breathed. He’d wondered about this, his size relative to other Jotnar. In those lonely years masquerading as the Allfather he’d had a lot of time to wonder about a lot of things. This was why he’d been left to die, then. Simply for the crime of being born. It still stung, somehow.

“Like you, little Prince,” Angrboda said, inclining his head.

Loki licked his lips, searched for words. He needed to know. “What is life like for them?” Were they loved? Were they happy?

“It is hard. Many are lost as babes because they are too weak to suckle, or too tiny to withstand the winter. And, in truth…” Angrboda trailed off for a moment. “Some of us were not kind to them. Or their parents. It’s gotten better.”

“You said something about being ruled by a crueler hand. You mean Laufey? My father?”

Angrboda’s face twisted for a moment. “Yes. Your sire was…”

“A bloodthirsty tyrant, you called him,” Thor said, his voice sounding harsh as it cut through the air. Loki looked to him. The harshness wasn’t from anger; he could see the grief written on Thor’s face. He had the mad urge to take Thor’s hand. Clutch it to him like an anchor. He felt lost, suddenly, and even smaller than he did before, and his throat felt too tight to draw a proper breath.

“That is not for you to say,” Angrboda said. His brow lowered like it did every time Thor spoke. “But yes, he was. I cannot say that I am sorry to see him gone. Another thing to thank Prince Loki for.”

It was all much too much. The buildings parted before them to reveal the palace in all its lack of glory. An empty plaza stood before it with a defunct fountain in the middle, and Loki took the opportunity to interject before Angrboda could casually eviscerate him even further, or start going on about how marvelous the broken-down fountain was; either was intolerable right now.

“My friend. Your hospitality has been extraordinary,” Loki said, making his tone as warm and gracious as possible. “And we have truly enjoyed every moment of it. I’m sure your people must be done at our ship by now, though, and I’d hate to impose on you any longer. I’m sure you have...much to do.” He gestured vaguely around him.

“But you have yet to visit the palace,” Angrboda said. “Or meet Farbauti.”

“I’m sure the palace is as astonishing at the rest of the city,” Loki said. “As for this...Farbauti, did you say?...please, give them my fondest regards—”

“Little Prince,” Angrboda said, surprise in his voice. “Do you not know of Farbauti?”

“Er...no?”

At that moment, the palace doors opened and a contingent of Jotnar swept into the plaza. At the front, flanked by armed guards, was a regal Jotun clad in robes of fur and ivory samite, only perhaps two feet taller than Loki himself, with the same strong nose and loosely curled black hair that looked back at Loki from the mirror every morning. Loki’s stomach lurched, and he shot a glance at Thor; Thor had dropped into a casually defensive stance, and his eye was darting between Loki and the newcomers.

Angrboda snapped to attention and put his fist to his heart. “Councilor Farbauti,” he said, inclining his head.

“General,” the regal one said. Farbauti. His voice was rich and deep. “I received your message. I came as quickly as I could.”

Farbauti turned his gaze on Loki and Loki’s stomach twisted again. He nearly took a step back when Farbauti began walking towards him, but managed to hold onto decorum by the skin of his teeth.

“Are you Loki?” Farbauti asked. “Prince Loki?” His voice was strained, his eyes hopeful.

“I am.”

Farbauti was upon him in two strides. Loki found his eyes had gone shut in anticipation of violence, but then he realized that Farbauti had seized his hands and was squeezing them, _kissing_ them. He opened his eyes. Farbauti grabbed his upper arms, shook him slightly, and opened his mouth to speak, but choked—then reached up and touched Loki’s cheek gently where his helm wasn’t covering it. There were tears in his red eyes.

“I thought you dead,” Farbauti said. “My darling. My sweet child. You’ve finally come home.”

Time stopped for a moment.

_Darling. Sweet child._

_What?_

Loki’s voice was stuck in his throat, and before he could find it again, Farbauti turned to his escort and started giving them orders.

“Go have the dining room made up...not that one, my private one...yes, exactly, and have the kitchen send up lunch for five...”

“Pardon me,” Loki said, finally managing to interject. He’d never felt more wrong-footed in his life. Surely he hadn’t heard properly. Surely this Jotun had not just waltzed up and called him his child. “I don’t understand.”

“Won’t you join us for a meal?” Farbauti said, sounding anxious. “After all this time—”

“A meal,” Loki said stupidly, like a parrot.

“And you must be Thor,” Farbauti said, turning to Thor, who was looking poleaxed as well . “Odin’s heir. Yes?” 

He offered his hand to Thor, who shifted uncomfortably.

“I am Thor, son of Odin, but forgive me. Will your skin not burn mine?”

Farbauti raised an eyebrow and kept his hand outstretched. It looked a little like a test.

Gamely, Thor took it.

When it was obvious that Farbauti’s skin wasn’t burning his, Thor added his other hand too, smiling in relief, and Farbauti smiled back. Loki had experienced a Jotun’s frostbite touch himself, but he hadn’t realized it wasn’t always that way. Perhaps it was something that could be turned off and on. _Like a toad choosing to secrete venom._

“Well met, Odinson,” Farbauti said. “Ymir’s blood, I never thought I’d see this day. I hardly know what to do with myself.”

On that they could agree. Privately, Loki thought he deserved some kind of credit for not simply screaming the entire plaza down around them at the moment. Norns, he needed a moment to breathe.

“Might we have some time to refresh ourselves?” Loki asked. “It’s been a long morning.”

“Of course, where are my manners?” Farbauti clapped his hands and a page appeared from his escort. “Please take my child and his friend to the west parlor, I think that one’s suitable. And I’ll never hear the end of it from Hrodr if I don’t invite him to dine with us, why don’t we have the table made up for six…”

“What the hell is going on?” Thor murmured to Loki as the page led them into the palace.

All Loki could do was look at him and shrug.

The page deposited them in the parlor and they were left by themselves for the first time since they’d landed on Jotunheim. The door clicked shut and Loki began pacing the room, cloak streaming behind him.

“Are you ok?” Thor asked.

Loki reached up and ripped his helm off and threw it at the wall.

“_No, I'm not ok_,” he snarled. At least he meant to snarl it, but his voice cracked, and by the last word he was holding back tears. He went to dash them from his eyes and saw that his hands were blue and realized he was still in his Jotun skin, even though he was here alone with Thor. He did start crying then, a deep ugly sob dredged up from his gut.

He stopped short and buried his face in his hands. Then there were hands on his shoulders, and arms going around him. “Don’t touch my skin,” he managed to choke out, and then he fell against Thor’s broad chest and let Thor hold him for a moment while he fell apart. It mortified him, but gods, it felt too good, Thor’s arms around him. Like falling into safety. Another sob escaped him before he could stop it, and Thor’s hold tightened, and then there were gentle fingers rubbing up and down his back. Cupping the back of his head.

It wouldn’t do to get too used to things like this, and so Loki swallowed the rest of his sobs and pushed away from Thor before he wanted to. The way Thor was smiling at him, like he cared, made Loki feel achy.

“I thought you said—” Loki started, but his voice wasn’t working properly just yet and he had to stop and clear his throat and start again. “I thought you said they wouldn’t know it was me.”

Thor laughed ruefully and ran his hand up the shorn hair at the back of his head.

“I was wrong,” he said.

Loki laughed himself, a little high and hysterical. He looked for a chair to fall into, but all the furniture was so high he’d have to climb up onto it like a child. He took in the room for the first time. Floor, walls, and ridiculously high ceiling were all made of ice, though the floor was covered by fur rugs and the walls hung with tapestries. Tall windows provided light, as did glowing orbs set into wall sconces. The chairs were made of bone, and he rapped an armrest with his knuckles and then leaned against it, slumping, and tried not to just slide all the way to the floor.

“So let me see if I’ve got this all straight,” Thor said. He was still standing as well, arms crossed and brow serious. “First off, you tried to destroy this entire race of people, and somehow managed to instead rid them of a cruel leader and restore their lost magic to them. Brother, I know your plans often don’t go as you’d like, but this is something else.”

“Thank you for that entirely flattering assessment,” Loki said. “But yes, it appears that way.”

“And Farbauti—”

Loki put his hand up and stopped Thor short. He wasn’t ready to think about that, much less talk about it. It didn’t even make any sense. Odin himself had said that Loki was Laufey’s son, and Angrboda had confirmed it. Who was Farbauti, exactly?

Loki’s guts were twisting. He’d been ready to leave Jotunheim before they even got here, and ready to leave it every moment since then. To run. Isn’t that what he always did? Disappeared when things got too hard? And things right now felt the hardest they’d been since...since...

He closed his eyes and saw again the faces of the little frost giant children. He thought of how so many of them had perished already. How the ones who had survived were going about their lives here in this ruined world that wasn’t even built on their scale, made to live in a place where they would never truly fit in—just as he had never fit in in Asgard. He could have been any one of them. They didn’t really look like monsters at all, did they? But Loki… If he went and got back on that ship and left, he’d be the actual monster.

“I have to stay,” Loki said softly. The words were an effort to force out. A bleakness settled over him. His and Thor’s paths were diverging again, just when they were starting to walk in step. But what other choice did he have?

“What? Why?”

“Just go back without me. I’m sure no one will miss me.”

“Brother—”

Thor’s hand closed on Loki’s shoulder, and Loki looked up into his face. There was a sadness there he wasn’t used to seeing.

“You can’t ask me to leave you,” Thor said. “What more good could you possibly do here? Why do you have to stay? Is it Farbauti?”

“Because,” Loki said hopelessly, “I have this.”

Gently, he pushed Thor away. He took a deep breath and reached into his pocket dimension and _pulled_, and then there it was, the second item he’d stolen from Asgard’s vault, as heavy in his hands as the weight of Jotunheim itself.

The Casket of Ancient Winters.


	2. Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the warm reception on chapter 1!
> 
> Expect the next chapter this weekend. 👀

There was a knock on the door, and Loki vanished the Casket as quickly as he’d summoned it.

“A moment!” he called out. Then, quietly to Thor, “I don’t suppose you’d let me stab you to get us out of this?”

“I’d like to keep my blood inside my body today,” Thor said. Then, aggrieved, “Where did you get the Casket anyway? The vault?”

“Yes, the vault,” Loki hissed. “That’s not the important part, the important part is that I _have_ it.”

“You’ve had it for months and you didn’t—”

Loki was saved from any further questioning by the door swinging open. It was the page.

The page bowed low. “Prince Loki? And—” His voice trailed off uncertainly when his eyes reached Thor, clearly feeling uncomfortable addressing him.

“‘Thor, son of Odin’ will do,” Thor said.

“Of course. Thor, son of Odin. Councilor Farbauti sent me to escort you. If you could follow me, please.”

Thor’s look promised Loki that he’d have more to say later, but he fell in at Loki’s side behind the page without voicing a complaint. Loki resisted the urge to chew on his thumbnail. He felt nauseous. He should have just gotten through the meal and then sent a double of himself back with Thor to the ship instead of announcing himself and his ill-gotten gains like a dramatic idiot. Clearly the day’s stress was scrambling his brain.

The hallway ceiling arched high above them. Their breath puffed out in little clouds. It may have been summer by an ice planet’s standards, but it was still barely above freezing. Loki didn’t feel uncomfortable (the blue skin, he supposed), but Thor’s bare arms were all over gooseflesh and mottled by the cold. Wordlessly, Loki materialized a fur mantle about Thor’s shoulders.

Thor looked down in surprise, then clutched the fur tighter, and tried to catch Loki’s eye, mouthing something. Loki kept his gaze straight forward as they walked. Thor was either trying to thank him or scold him for trying to butter him up, and he didn’t want either one of those things right now. His eyes were at the level of the page’s belt, and he wondered if this was what he was in for—a lifetime at arse level. He noticed that the page had close-cropped black hair, which was only notable in that almost every Jotun he’d seen so far with the exception of Farbauti was bald.

Glowing orbs set into wall sconces illuminated the way. Everything was ice, and the overall impression was _blue_, although there was a certain depth to the ice the longer Loki looked at it, and he could see rainbows refracting in its depths.

The page brought them up a set of stairs and then to a pair of ornately carved bone doors.

They passed through an antechamber and into a richly appointed room with a long table set with six places, one at either end and two on each side. Farbauti was already seated at one end, and Angrboda in the middle, and a Jotun that Loki didn’t recognize at the other end. Angrboda had swapped his armor for a tunic.

“Prince Loki and Thor, son of Odin!” the page announced brightly.

“Bergelmir!” Farbauti said, rising. “Thank you for fetching my child. And his Asgardian friend as well.”

_Asgardian friend. Hah._

Bergelmir smiled a bit shyly and ducked his head, and then made to sit next to Angrboda. Ah. Probably not a page, then. Farbauti clasped Loki’s hand in greeting, then offered his hand to Thor as well, who took it with no hesitation this time.

“You already know General Angrboda, and my assistant Bergelmir.” Farbauti gestured to the other occupied seat. “This is Hrodr, our—”

“Another one of your Councilors,” Hrodr said.

The last Jotun tipped his head. His voice was a light high tenor, or maybe a low alto. He was wearing a dove gray robe, belted at the waist with a jewel-encrusted sash, and he was covered from neck to wrist in layers upon layers of jewelry, bald head draped with a net of fine golden chain.

“Don’t be modest,” Farbauti said. “Hrodr here is the finest sorcerer of the age.”

Hrodr waved one jewel-bedecked hand.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Loki said. Then, surveying the table, “Forgive me, but your chairs are far too large for us.”

“Oh!” Bergelmir said brightly. “Here, I’ve done them up the best I could on short notice—”

He jumped up and pulled the two empty chairs out and Loki saw to his horror that they’d been stacked high with flat cushions, like a parent might do for a small child.

Farbauti sounded apologetic. "I hope this is acceptable for now.”

“Of course,” Loki said. He and Thor shared a look as they clambered up into their seats. Their dishes were half the size of the rest of the place settings, and the cutlery was oddly thick handled and blunted despite the smaller size. Loki realized they’d been given children’s dishes. He’d never felt more ridiculous. Once they were all seated, Farbauti spoke again. 

“Loki,” Farbauti said, and how curious his unadorned name sounded falling from those lips. “The first we knew you hadn't died as a babe was the events of the Bloom. We’ve learned more since then, of course. How the Asgardians passed you off as their own. Now this one—” and here he gestured to Thor, “—you were raised as brothers, correct?”

“Yes,” Loki said, uncomfortable. He didn’t know where Farbauti was going with this.

“And you still consider him so? I believe I heard you call him “brother” earlier.”

“...Yes.”

“Then, as long as he continues to display goodwill towards us, I shall endeavor to treat him as such,” Farbauti said, and Loki breathed another internal sigh of relief.

Thor bowed his head. “I thank you. My brother means much to me.”

“I still don’t see why he has to be here,” Angrboda said, jerking his chin towards Thor.

“Peace, Bodi,” Farbauti said. Angrboda grumbled and looked away. Farbauti turned to Loki again, and he looked so earnest that Loki felt almost embarrassed. “It’s our first meal as a family. Let’s not open old wounds tonight.”

Loki decided to be forthright for once and see what happened. “You must forgive me again, but I had been under the impression that Laufey was my father.”

Hrodr barked out a short laugh that he hid behind his cup.

“Yes, Laufey was your sire,” Farbauti said, giving Hrodr a look. 

“Did I have two fathers, then?” Loki asked. “It is not an entirely uncommon arrangement on Asgard, I confess, but—”

“Tell him,” Hrodr said, gesturing with his drink.

Loki looked between the two of them, at a loss.

“Councilor Farbauti is your _dam_,” Bergelmir said, sounding scandalized, then clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle his outburst.

“My dam?” Loki said, his heart constricting. He didn’t quite understand. “But you’re a man—”

Hrodr set his cup down so hard that some wine slopped over the side. “This one is as ignorant as a pup,” he said with no small amount of derision. “Worse than that. Even a pup knows their sire from their dam.”

“_Peace_, Hrodr,” Farbauti said, long-suffering. “Our young prince was not raised here. Who knows what he’s been taught?”

“‘Not raised here,’” Angrboda echoed. “That’s an interesting way of saying _abducted_.” He looked pointedly at Thor, who looked pointedly back.

“_I said peace_,” Farbauti said sharply, a note of command in his voice that hadn’t been there before, and the other Jotnar all fell still. “This is the first meal I’ve shared with my own child since he was a babe in arms and I intend to enjoy it. If you please.” He snapped his fingers and the doors opened to allow in servants bearing platters of food.

“I apologize for them,” Farbauti said, leaning over to speak only to Loki as the servants bustled around them.

Loki found himself quite speechless. The specifics were still eluding him, but… A dam. A parent. A parent who to all appearances seemed to harbor a certain fondness for him, or at least the idea of him. _”Since he was a babe in arms,”_ Farbauti said. Loki realized he’d never once imagined his Jotun mother before. Never even thought about the concept. Never pictured himself as a baby cradled in large blue arms.

Farbauti had held him that way.

Farbauti’s hand was resting on the table and Loki found himself seizing it the way that Farbauti had seized his out by the fountain.

“You’re my dam,” Loki said softly, wondrously, trying the word out on his tongue.

Farbauti smiled at him, wide and joyful, and squeezed him back.

They broke apart for a servant to set down a dish that wafted steam up between them. It smelled delicious.

“I hope you like fish,” Farbauti said.

*

The meal passed far more pleasantly than Loki had feared it would. 

From what he gathered over the course of conversation, Jotunheim had had no monarch since Laufey, but was instead governed by a Council. Farbauti seemed to be a prominent Councilor, maybe the most prominent. Loki could tell there was more going under the surface though, and there were many questions that he wanted to ask, but something in the way that Hrodr looked at him made him hold his tongue. It was obvious the sorcerer didn’t trust Loki. He stayed civil for the rest of the meal, though, apparently acceding to Farbauti’s wishes for peace. Angrboda, too, kept his tongue in check, limiting himself to black looks at Thor.

Thor, for his part, kept quieter than Loki had ever seen him manage before. Loki was glad of his company all the same; Loki had a tendency to go adrift in frightening ways when left to his own devices, and Thor’s presence grounded him. Even just the ghost of Thor’s arms around him earlier bolstered him far more than he cared to admit.

The food was lighter than Loki might have expected had he ever bothered to imagine Jotun cuisine at all, which he hadn’t. Jotnar were fairy tale monsters, and Loki’s other visits to Jotunheim had done nothing to disabuse him of the notion. For all he knew, they snatched fish straight from the water and tore into them raw with their teeth. In reality, though, this could have been a meal on Asgard, though a simple one. There was steamed fish in a fragrant broth, roasted marrow bones with delicate spoons for scooping, sauteed sea grass studded with small chunks of some kind of bright orange vegetable. It was all so very _normal_.

The servants were setting out the dessert course, stewed cloudberries and a liqueur that smelled pleasantly of angelica, when Bergelmir mentioned the Heart Tree.

“The Heart Tree?” Loki said politely.

“I believe Bodi told you of the Bloom?” Farbauti said.

Surprisingly, it was Hrodr who spoke. “When the Bifrost opened and brought some of the Casket of Ancient Winters with it, the place it struck was infused with life from the Casket’s magic.” The look he turned on Loki was not exactly kind.

“The ice,” Bergelmir said, his eyes shining, “it _bloomed_.”

“It bloomed, aye,” Hrodr said. “Into a great tree.”

“Its branches reach to the heavens!” Bergelmir cried. “The land around it sings.”

Loki remembered the twisting branches of ice that had formed in the Bifrost Observatory where he and Thor had fought all those years ago. He looked over at his brother and found Thor looking at him as well, probably thinking of the same thing. Much of that day was muddled in Loki’s mind, but he could recall with perfect clarity a snapshot of Thor’s face—bloody, earnest, devastated, his hair wild around him—and how it contrasted with the Thor looking at him now with one eye, his face lined with years of hard-earned experience. He wanted to put his hand on Thor’s cheek. _I’m sorry for everything_.

“I find it passing strange that you know nothing of it,” Hrodr said to Loki. “Considering that you created it.”

“Of course I know of it,” Loki lied smoothly. “Only how was I to know what you had named it in my absence? I’m glad to hear that it has provided the, ah...boost that I intended.”

“I am interested to hear of its creation,” Hrodr said. “A great many things happened that day, and all of them shrouded in mystery. Perhaps you’d care to enlighten us?”

Loki was starting to get an inkling as to why Hrodr distrusted him. Oddly, it made him respect Hrodr slightly more; he was the only one who wasn’t giving Loki the benefit of the doubt. He was sharp. Loki would need to keep an eye on him. 

Loki had been mentally preparing this story already. He nudged Thor’s ankle with his own under the table. _Let me talk._

“I take it you mean the events surrounding the death of Laufey?” Loki said. At Hrodr’s nod, Loki continued. “I’d only just learned of my true parentage. I was overcome with a longing to meet my people, and so I invited Laufey to Asgard. Regrettably, Laufey took advantage of my goodwill and used it against me. He tried to murder Odin in his bed. Surely you’ve heard of this part?” Loki paused for dramatic effect, then continued, the very image of put-upon grace. “I was only just able to stop him—I was fairly aggrieved, I’ll have you know—I had to decide in an instant whether to defend my adoptive father or my newly found birth father—but Laufey left me no choice, for he attacked me straight away when I entered the room—he forced my hand against him. Odin threatened to destroy all of Jotunheim for Laufey’s transgression. I told him he couldn’t slay an entire people, but he was beyond reason. He opened the Bifrost as a weapon. Thor and I were able to stop him—”

That was a good bit at the end, Loki thought. To include Thor as one of the saviors of Jotun-kind, pass a little of that goodwill onto him as well. He hoped Thor didn’t mind him stealing one of Thor’s lines.

“I destroyed the Bifrost,” Thor offered. Loki was grateful he was playing along and not disputing any of the blatant fabrications, and he knocked their ankles together again. _Thank you._

“And I sent as much of the Casket through as I could before he did,” Loki said. “I only regret that I wasn’t able to send more before…”

Surprisingly, he choked up for real. Sometimes memories of his fall into the Abyss struck harder than he expected them to. Thor must have realized this was no act, because he nudged his ankle back and held it there, a silent comfort, and Loki tethered himself to the point of physical contact.

“So the Bifrost _was_ an attack,” Hrodr said with some satisfaction. He shot a look at Angrboda.

“I never said it wasn’t destructive,” Angrboda grumbled. “Just that the good we got from it outweighed the harm.”

“The intent, though—” Hrodr said.

“_My_ intent was only ever to help,” Loki said, recovering his voice.

Hrodr turned back to him. “And why have you never returned here, if your intent was always so noble?”

“Hrodr,” Farbauti said gently.

“No, it’s alright,” Loki said. “A great many terrible things happened to me between then and now. I returned as soon as I was able.”

“For a day only, and only to take,” Hrodr said.

“I confess…” Loki said. This time his choked voice was entirely an act. “I wanted desperately to see my homeland but I wasn’t sure of the welcome I’d receive. I didn’t want to impose—”

Farbauti covered Loki’s hand with his own.

“My child is never an imposition,” Farbauti said.

“I’m only grateful to hear of the good I managed to do,” Loki said. “This Heart Tree sounds truly magnificent.”

“Oh you must see it,” Bergelmir said, his excitement making him lean forward in his seat. “It’s—” He waved his arms.

Hrodr opened his mouth to speak again, but Farbauti cut him off. “It’s only half a day’s ride from the city. We could visit it after lunch, if you like, and then see you back to your ship.”

“I’d like to see it as well,” Thor said. Everyone turned to look at him. “If that’s alright, of course.”

“You’d have us stay that long?” Loki said to Thor. He'd not yet told the Jotnar he intended on staying for good. Thor only smiled at him, fond and sad. Loki was struck again with the urge to cup his cheek and feel the shape of that smile against his hand. Sometimes it hurt, the strength of the love he felt for his brother.

“It’s settled, then,” Farbauti said. “Bergelmir and I will take you. We’ll send word to your people that the two of you are staying a bit longer.”

“I look forward to it,” Thor said, and downed the rest of his drink.


	3. The Tree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *vibrating*

Loki had expected horses.

He wasn’t sure why, exactly. There was no reason to think that something as delicate as a horse could live in a place like this, or that a horse existed that was big enough to carry a full-grown Jotun. Nevertheless, when Farbauti said “half a day’s ride,” the image conjured in Loki’s mind had been horses.

It was, in fact, mammoths.

The stress of the day so far had left him in no way prepared to face the beast staring him down right now. He was half afraid the thing would simply pick him up in its trunk and toss him onto its back.

He eyed the mounting block they’d rigged up for him outside the stable. Actually, perhaps being tossed might be preferable.

“Loki, can you believe this! Mammoths!”

Thor, the baffling man, was beside himself with excitement. He had gone straight up and begun patting the mammoth’s hairy leg and then scritching at the base of its trunk once it tipped its head down for him.

“This one is called Poppy,” the handler said.

Loki couldn’t think of a name less suited to such a large hairy creature. “Poppy?”

“On account of her being so small and dainty,” the handler explained. While Loki was digesting this information, two more mammoths were brought out, and he immediately understood what the handler was talking about. Poppy looked positively elfin next to them. Apparently he’d been given the mammoth version of a pony.

“Don’t look so daunted,” Farbauti said cheerfully, pulling on a pair of riding gloves. “They’re very sweet animals.”

“Usually,” Bergelmir added.

Loki shifted uncomfortably. He still wasn’t used to wearing his Jotun skin. The sun made him squint. “Unless I’ve lost the ability to count, there are four of us and only three mounts.”

“Poppy is for both of you,” the handler said. “Bitty things like you would annoy a mount more than anything else. Best to double up the weight.”

Norns, the indignity of it all.

Thor grinned at Loki’s sour expression and came over to clap him on the shoulder. “We haven’t ridden double since we were boys. Come, it will be fun.”

Once they were outside the city walls, the mammoths picked up their pace from a walk to an almost lazy run, and the three beasts rumbled down the causeway. They shook the ground with their passing. The wind streamed across Loki’s face and his heart leapt in his chest, and he felt some of his tension bleed away. Poppy tossed her head, her tusks flashing white in the sun.

Loki had an iron grip on the reins, but Thor kept threatening to bounce right off onto the ground to be trampled, and he wrapped both arms around Loki’s middle.

They were just passing the Statesman, and Loki twisted his head back to yell directly into Thor’s ear.

“Hold on tight!”

The plain beyond the ship opened up, and he let Poppy have her head. And maybe he helped her with his seidr. Just the teensiest bit. His feet couldn’t reach the stirrups, after all.

They fairly flew.

By the time they slowed from their gallop, Loki was windblown and grinning from ear to ear, just like he always was after flying with his brother. It hadn’t been exactly the same as taking to the sky, but it was oh so close.

“I might be sick,” Thor said behind him. “Mjolnir never bumped me around so.”

Loki laughed. He couldn’t resist teasing Thor a little. “I thought you said this would be fun.”

“I was wrong,” Thor said miserably.

“Twice in one day! Must be a record.”

Thor squeezed Loki in a bear hug in retaliation until he threatened to pop and didn’t let up until Loki made exaggerated gagging noises and they both laughed. Poppy settled into a ground-eating lumber, and, his laughter dying out, Loki let himself settle back against Thor’s chest. Thor’s arms still rested loosely around his waist. It was nice. Loki was, dare he say it, happy for this one small moment. And if he was enjoying riding double with his brother a little more than was strictly appropriate, well, no one had to know.

*

The Heart Tree took Loki’s breath away.

He felt it before he saw it. Bergelmir had said that the land around it sang, and Loki couldn’t think of a more apt description. They’d passed from scrubby tundra to grassy steppe covered in wildflowers, Loki following behind Farbauti and admiring the mountains in the distance, when the rocky grass and lichen and flowers began to _thrum_. He felt it in his bones, like a song he couldn’t quite make out the words to. He wondered if Thor could feel it too. He was just about to ask when they crested a small rise, and then there it was, down in the valley below them. Loki had been imagining it would be like the ice tree in the Observatory, only perhaps a bit bigger. 

It was like looking upon Yggdrasil itself. 

The trunk soared as tall as one of Asgard’s spires, and its roots spread as far as its branches, fingers of ice twining over and around each other across the ground and up into a great canopy overhead. Its song burst into glorious harmony in Loki’s chest, and tears pricked his eyes.

“Gods,” Thor breathed behind him.

Loki decided to be annoying to cover up his awe. 

“Not gods,” Loki corrected. “Me.”

Thor poked him in the ribs. “The Casket.”

Loki grumbled and shook him off. “Fine, the Casket. But a little bit me.”

_The tiniest bit me. Even though I didn’t mean to._

Farbauti nudged his mount close enough to yell down to them.

“We’ll meet you at that boulder down there! You can use it to dismount!”

The tree was even larger up close, somehow. Loki scrambled down from Poppy with as much dignity as he could manage, while Thor just leapt from her back to the ground. The Tree’s visible roots tangled along the ground higher than Loki’s head. He put a hand on one. It felt like...clicking something into place. Like he had been vibrating on a frequency that he hadn’t realized was the tiniest bit off until suddenly it wasn’t. A bone-melting sense of _relief_ flooded through him.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Farbauti murmured behind him.

“It’s alive,” Loki said, opening eyes he didn’t realize had fallen shut. “Living ice.”

“The Bloom.”

Loki realized now exactly how much this land had needed this. He was aghast that it had ever been taken away. It belonged here. He could feel the Casket in its dimensional pocket yearning to be set free.

“A thousand years we lived without this,” Farbauti said, joining Loki in putting his hand to the Tree. “I’m only sorry that Laufey is dead that I cannot kill him myself for giving it away.”

_I killed him,_ Loki thought. For all the wrong reasons, he had killed him. Loki felt guilty at the lies he was telling Farbauti.

It felt like they were in a bubble, like the Tree had cast some sort of spell on them to make the rest of the world fall away. Loki took his hand from the Tree and turned to face Farbauti. “Did you love him?”

Farbauti was quiet for a moment, studying his own hand spread out against the ice. “Once, I did. Long ago. A more idealistic time. Our paths diverged rather spectacularly, I’m afraid.”

Loki finally asked the question that had been lodged in his throat since the moment they’d met.

“Did you love me?”

Farbauti’s eyes met his, and Loki blinked hard, clearing the moisture that was suddenly blurring his vision.

“_More than anything_,” Farbauti said vehemently.

Loki pressed his lips together, his throat too tight to speak.

“When they took you from me,” Farbauti said, “I fought them. But there were too many, they… I killed many of them, but not enough. They took you from me anyway. Tell me—” Farbauti grasped his shoulders and searched his eyes. “Were the Asgardians kind to you?”

Loki tried to imagine it. Farbauti, holding a tiny babe in his arms, mercilessly set upon by Odin’s  
soldiers. Odin had told Loki he’d found him abandoned, left to die. Was it all another lie?

“After a fashion,” Loki said, thinking of Odin. And then, softer, “There were some who loved me,” thinking of Frigga and Thor.

“You deserved more than that,” Farbauti said, and it felt so good to hear those words that Loki nearly hugged him. “But now you’re here with me, even if only for a moment.”

Loki gave him a smile that was more a tightening of the corners of his mouth than anything else. _Maybe more than a moment._ He couldn’t bring himself to say it yet. When they got back, perhaps.

The thought sobered him though, and he stepped back, casting his eyes around for Thor and Bergelmir, wondering how much they’d seen or heard. Bergelmir had thrown himself into a full body hug with one of the Tree's roots, his cheek pressed to the ice and a beatific expression on his face. Thor was perhaps ten paces away, looking anywhere other than at Loki and Farbauti.

_When did he learn to tread so lightly?_ Loki wondered. There was a time when Thor would have inserted himself into any conversation, made anything that was Loki’s into his as well. 

“Come,” Farbauti said. He looped his arm through Loki’s and gave him a squeeze. “Let us get you back to your ship.”

*

The ride back was over in a blink. Thor didn’t hold onto Loki quite as tightly, perhaps because he’d finally learned the knack of keeping his seat, and Loki had to clench his hands around the reins to stop himself from taking Thor’s hands and pulling them around him. He couldn’t imagine that Thor would stay for long once they made it back.

“You didn’t tell them you’re staying yet,” Thor said at one point.

Loki shrugged against his chest. “I haven’t found the right moment.”

“The Tree—” Thor started, his voice trailing off into the distance. “You’re doing the right thing, giving the Casket back to them. Staying to right the wrongs Father did.”

Loki resisted the urge to say _your father_. “Well, you did say that perhaps there was some good in me after all.”

He kept his tone light but he was blinking back tears that he refused to let fall. Was this his fate, to do the right thing and suffer for it? To trade a brother for a dam? How could such a trade ever be fair, when Thor was the brother?

“Will you ever tell them the truth of what happened?” Thor said.

“How can I? They’d kill me. Confessing will do me no good, and them no good either.” _Let me atone in secret_.

Their little group stopped well away from the Statesman and the group of Jotun soldiers guarding it, behind the privacy of a small rise in the land, and they dismounted.

Farbauti turned to Thor first and closed his fist over his heart. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Thor, Asgardian or not. I hope that one day our people might learn to reconcile and forge a better future for both of us.”

“If your people are all as gracious as you, I believe that we shall,” Thor said. “Thank you for your hospitality, and your aid. Asgard is in your debt.”

Farbauti turned to Loki, and his eyes were soft.

“My child. I thought you dead twice, and each time a piece of me died with you. But now those pieces have been restored to me. Go with my blessing. I hope that one day you might return to me again.”

Loki’s mouth trembled. Now was when he should speak. But before he could, Farbauti took his hands and kissed them, and then pulled him into a hug. The unexpectedness of it made Loki tense, and by the time he started to relax, Farbauti was already pulling away, squeezing his hands and smiling sadly, and turning to leave.

Bergelmir waved at them from where he still sat perched on his mammoth.

Loki opened his mouth to call out, but Thor put his hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

“Wait,” Thor said for Loki’s ears only. “Not yet. Let them go.”

Loki gave Poppy’s trunk a parting caress, and the two Jotnar rode off, Bergelmir holding onto Poppy’s lead. The bleakness from yesterday settled over Loki again. His happy mood from the morning was nothing but a distant memory. All that was left was an empty ache and an urge to draw blood. He turned to Thor, letting his Jotun skin dissolve into his Asgardian one, and tried not to shudder.

“Why did you tell me to wait?”

“I need to talk to you about something.”

“You couldn’t have brought it up on the ride back?” Loki asked testily. They were alone, but he cast a spell of silence on them anyway out of habit.

“I was thinking,” Thor said.

“That must have been a strain.”

Loki knew he was being waspish but he couldn’t help himself. There had been too many world-shaking revelations in the last day, and not enough time to properly process any of them, and Thor was about to leave him alone to deal with all of it while he gallivanted off into space with a talking pile of rocks and a human. Thought doing so was a grand idea, actually.

_You made the choice to stay yourself._

_That doesn’t make it feel any better._

Thor only gave him a long-suffering look, which irritated Loki more than if he’d fought back.

“Just go,” Loki snapped. “Make everyone’s day when they hear I’m not returning.”

“Do you truly think so little of yourself?” Thor asked.

The phrasing of it made Loki realize with great specificity why he was feeling so terrible. _Do you truly think so little of me?_ The whole thing was like that day on Sakaar, when Loki had pushed Thor away, just a bit, just enough to rile him up and make him come chasing, and instead Thor had done just as Loki had asked and _left_.

“You should be pleased,” Loki said. “You tried to leave me behind once and it didn’t stick. Perhaps this time it will.”

“That’s not fair,” Thor said. He was starting to look angry. Good. That would make everything easier.

“Nothing in my life has ever been _fair_,” Loki said venomously. Hurt was bubbling up inside him. “You were listening back at the Tree. You heard how Odin kidnapped me straight from Farbauti’s arms. He—he took me from someone who actually _wanted_ me, to bring me back to Asgard where no one did and raise me as second best. _Why_? Why did he do that?”

Thor looked wounded. “I wanted you.”

“That’s what you take from that?” Loki said disbelievingly. “So you’re happy, then, that I was kidnapped? Stolen away to be your little shadow?”

“No! That’s not—I only meant—” Thor huffed in frustration. “Why are you acting like this? I’m sorry that Father did that, but I’m not sorry that you’re my brother. Are you? I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

“And if you want it, it must be the right thing,” Loki said, blinking back furious tears. “Odin should have killed me as a babe instead. It would have been kinder than what he did. _Go._ I can’t bear to see your face. It looks too much like his.”

“Is that what you truly wish?"

“Go!” Loki cried, pointing, his voice trembling.

The horrible part was that it wasn’t what he wished, not at all. He didn’t want to be left behind. He wanted Thor to fight for him, just as he’d wanted Thor to fight for him on Sakaar. He wanted Thor to throw him to the ground and wrestle him into submission, to take everything that Loki wanted to give him but was too proud and stubborn and stupid and afraid to just let him have. He wanted to feel worth even half a damn.

Thor didn’t move.

Loki took a step towards him, hands balled into fists, and his mouth started talking on its own.

“When you’re here I want you to leave, and when you’re gone I wish you were here. Why does everything in my life have to be about you? Even...even Odin taking me...that’s about you now too...why can’t I be free of you? Why do you _consume_ me?”

He’d taken several steps toward Thor now, and they were inches apart, close enough for Loki to drown in the blue of that one fearsome eye. But he wasn’t done yet. His wretched mouth kept right on going.

“Loving you _hurts_. I want to hurt _you_.” He shoved Thor in the chest. “I want to cut you until the ground runs red with your blood. I want you to kiss me—”

Loki gasped. The blood rushed in his ears, his heart hammering. What had he done? _Now is the moment where Thor finally kills me_, he thought crazily. He fell back a step. Thor reached for his arm. Terrified and wide-eyed, Loki materialized a dagger and raised it to strike.

Thor caught his wrist. His voice was rough. 

“You fool.”

And then the dagger fell from Loki’s numb fingers, and his thoughts scattered to the winds and left his mind a blessed blank, because Thor’s lips were on his, and Thor was kissing him.

For one wild moment, Loki took his brother’s head in both hands and kissed him back.

_Oh_, he thought stupidly. _This is the loveliest thing that’s ever happened to me._

And then Thor went to close his arms around him, and instead they closed around nothing, and a small white ermine darted away into the grass.

*

By the time Loki found Thor again, it was hours later and the midnight sun was hovering near the horizon, painting the sky in vivid oranges and pinks and purples. Loki picked his way along the edge of the seaside cliffs on silent paws. He saw a bit of fallen rubble first, then some more, and then suddenly there was a ruined temple that looked like it was growing out of the lichen-covered tundra.

Thor was sitting on a wide set of stairs facing the sea.

Arctic poppies covered the ground at the base of the stairs, and were growing up the sides as well, finding purchase in every crack and chip in the broken stone. They looked like they were straining to reach Thor. They probably were. It wouldn’t be the first time that Thor inadvertently leaked seidr and caused things to grow around him.

_Look at them, turning their faces to Thor when the sun lies in the other direction._

Loki had never felt so much kinship with a plant.

He let his ermine form dissolve into his Asgardian one and sat down on Thor’s right side. It seemed easier somehow, to sit where Thor couldn’t see him.

“You’re still here,” Loki said.

After he’d run away he’d intended to hide somewhere very small and very dark for a very long time, and he’d made a very good start, but at some point after he’d calmed down he realized that he hadn’t heard or seen the Statesman lift off like he assumed it would. It drew him out of his little burrow. It drew him down to where the ship still sat with its contingent of Jotun guards, where he snooped around enough to determine that Thor had never come back at all.

Thor didn’t look at him. “I was hoping you’d find me.”

“Well, you didn’t make it easy.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence for a moment. All the passion and fury from earlier had melted out of Loki, leaving him hollowed out and pensive. He stared at the painter’s palette of the sky and thought about the impossibility of how after a lifetime of suppressed longing that it had been Thor who kissed him and not the other way around. He found himself leaning into Thor’s shoulder, sagging really, and Thor put his arm around him. 

“What I wanted to tell you before—” Thor said eventually, then stopped.

Loki sat up straight, pulling away to look at him, and waited.

Thor smoothed an imaginary wrinkle in his leggings and still didn’t meet Loki’s face.

“I want to stay here on Jotunheim,” Thor said. “With you. Not just me...all of us. We should try to settle here instead of Earth. Try to atone for some of the harm we caused.”

Atone. The same word Loki had thought of to describe what he wanted to do here himself.

“Oh,” Loki said, his voice embarrassingly small. “Do you...still want to?”

“More than ever.”

Loki’s heart swelled. It swelled until he thought it might burst. He wanted to kiss Thor again, throw his arms around his shoulders, cling to him. All the wretched things Loki had said to him, and the fool wanted to stay.

“I don’t know if the Jotnar will have you,” Loki said.

“They might not,” Thor said. “But I want to try. And... “

Thor took his hand. Laced their fingers together and squeezed. Loki squeezed his hand back, hardly daring to breathe.

“I don’t want to leave you again,” Thor said. “I don’t want you to leave me. I just… I want…” His voice caught and he sighed.

“You kissed me,” Loki said softly.

Thor huffed a wry little laugh. “I did. You asked.”

Loki realized his grip on Thor’s hand had gone painfully tight, and he eased up.

“If you stay—” Loki said, barely above a whisper. He licked his dry lips and marshalled all his courage. “I might ask you to kiss me again.”

Thor huffed that little laugh again, and smiled. It was the same smile he’d given Loki in his quarters on the Statesman when he realized that Loki wasn’t an illusion, right before he’d given him the kind of hug that made up for an entire decade without. It wrapped itself around Loki’s heart, aching and beautiful.

“If I stay,” Thor said, “I will.”

They sat for a little while longer, basking in the companionable silence. Loki slipped down a step and dared to lean his head against Thor’s thigh. Thor’s fingers played idly in his hair. Loki felt like he could breathe properly for the first time since they’d landed. Thor had kissed him. Thor wanted to stay with him. Despite the beauty of the landscape around them, Loki closed his eyes. He could feel the spirit of the land underneath them, a low deep hum at the edge of his consciousness, like it was sleeping. He touched the edge of his dimensional pocket and felt the Casket humming too. Something else tickled the edge of his mind. A change in frequency. The land felt the Casket as well. It yearned for it.

_I’ll give it to you,_ Loki thought. _I wonder if you’ll give me anything in return._

When they finally rose, Thor stretched his arms and cracked his back.

“We should go talk to the others,” Thor said. “It’s a long walk back to the ship. Times like these I wish I still had Mjolnir.”

“Poor Thor, forced to labor along on the ground like the rest of us.”

“Well, what about you?” Thor said. “Can’t you just turn into a bird?”

Loki couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “I’ve told you before, I can only turn into things that I am.”

“Ah, so you’re a weasel then,” Thor said gravely.

“An _ermine_.”

“Mmm. And what else. A snake. I’m sensing a theme here—”

“Careful, or I’ll turn into a wolf and tear your throat out.” 

Loki’s tone was good-natured and Thor only laughed. The truth was that Loki would be absolutely ecstatic to turn into a bird, but it was as he’d told Thor; he could only turn things that he was, and his spirit had never been unburdened enough to be a creature who could fly. His heart twisted inside the cage he’d made for it.

“Come on,” Loki said. “Let’s go see how big of a muddle we can get ourselves into.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you haven't checked it out already, peach coke did beautiful art for the scene with the Heart Tree, please [ give it some love!](https://peach-coke.tumblr.com/post/188961600607/thors-arms-still-rested-loosely-around-his-waist)  

> 
> Also [please look at this ermine](https://caterpickles.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/erminewinter.jpg) and imagine Loki's cute fuzzy lil butt running away from Thor because I canNOT get the image out of my head.


	4. Meeting

“The people might not be pleased,” Heimdall said. His voice was as even as ever. Sometimes Loki wonder if anything ever truly riled the Watcher up.

It was Loki, Thor, Banner, Heimdall, and Valkyrie standing around a table in the room on the Statesman that had become their de facto council room in the months they’d spent aboard, only now their window was looking out on the mountains of Jotunheim instead of a field of stars. Thor had elected to wake everyone up instead of going to sleep themselves and it was the small hours of the morning already, though it hardly felt like it since the sun had never gone down.

“The people won’t be pleased no matter where we end up,” Thor said. “Nothing will be able to replace Asgard. It will be hard work anywhere. At least this way we have a chance to make amends for our past. I’m not my father. I won’t carry his mistakes into the future, or pretend they didn’t happen.”

“You’re definitely not your father,” Heimdall agreed. Loki thought that that was an entirely positive thing.

“I’ll make enough of my own mistakes, I’m sure, but at least they’ll be mine. I hope this isn’t one of them.”

Banner sighed loudly and ran his hand over his face. “Man, I did _not_ sign up for this.”

“We’re not your personal shuttle service to Midgard, _Bruce_,” Loki said. Banner flinched.

Everyone else on the ship called him Banner, but Loki liked calling him Bruce just because it seemed to get under his skin in an interesting way.

“It’s not that the frost giants don’t seem cool,” Banner said. “It’s just that...I haven’t been home in a real long time, you guys.”

“And we’ll never go home again at all,” Loki said sharply. Banner winced this time.

“The frost giants are “cool?”” Valkyrie said, arching a brow at Banner. “Really?”

“And I thought you didn’t like “beings,”” Thor said, wiggling his fingers.

“_Evil_ beings. I don’t like evil beings. These guys are alright.”

Banner hadn’t really joined them until they’d already been in space for a month. His transformation into the green monster had seemed stuck. Loki had been giving him a wide berth until Thor mentioned in passing the way that Banner had gotten unstuck before; seeing a recording of the red woman.

“Oh,” Loki had said. “I’ll take care of it.”

He lured the beast into an empty hangar with the promise of food. _Remember to say “the sun’s going down,”_, Thor had said. Loki turned himself into Natasha Romanoff, spoke the words, and stood back to watch while Banner and the beast fought with each other until, finally, Banner emerged victorious.

Loki had breathed a little easier after that.

It was fun to keep reminding Banner how much he was in Loki’s debt, as well.

“You should just be thanking me that you’re not here as the Hulk,” Loki said. “The Jotnar probably would have slaughtered you instantly. You’d see how pleasant they were then.”

Heimdall spoke up. “Now that we’ve restocked, the Commodore probably has enough food and fuel to get Banner to Earth. It would take three, maybe four months.”

“Three months by myself?” Banner said morosely.

“Cheer up,” Valkyrie said. “It’s not so long, really.”

“I don’t suppose you might want to...come with?”

“What? Why?”

Banner squirmed. “I dunno. I thought we might have...I mean...we have kind of a thing, don’t we? I call you Angry Girl, you call me Big Guy—”

Valkyrie’s face was getting more and more mirthful as he talked, until finally she burst out laughing. She patted him on the shoulder, then opened her mouth to say something, closed it, and laughed again, all while his cheeks turned red.

“You should take that as a “no,”” Thor said, not unkindly.

“Fine,” Banner said to no one in particular, and crossed his arms, scowling. “Four months, tops?”

“Four months, no more,” Heimdall said. “Perhaps as little as three if you can catch a solar wind.”

“Fine,” Banner said again. “Good. Sounds good. Yeah.”

Thor turned to Loki. “Loki, you’re ok with Banner taking the Commodore?”

There hadn’t been enough rooms on the Statesman for everyone on board without people sleeping double or triple, and Loki had commandeered the Commodore as his own quarters for the past few months. It wasn’t a home, but it was as close to being _his_ as anything was right now. If it meant getting Banner out of their hair, though, Loki was happy to see it go.

“So nice of you to ask,” Loki said dryly. “It’s fine. Just let me gather my things from it first.”

“Excellent,” Thor said. “Banner, please give my regards to our friends when you get to Earth.”

“You can give them my regards too,” Loki said, smiling in a way that he knew was unsettling. He was rewarded with one of Banner’s wide-eyed looks.

“What is my life?” Banner said, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“Pathetic and depressingly short?” Loki offered. Thor kicked his ankle lightly and Loki fought not to smirk.

Thor’s voice shifted into King mode. “Now that that’s settled, we need to discuss how we’re going to approach the Jotnar about all of us staying.”

Loki became serious as well, and crossed his arms. “My guess is they’ll have us go before the Council. Make us beg.”

Valkyrie scratched her nose. “How much do you know about the Council?”

“Not much,” Thor said. “We know that Farbauti sits on it, as well as a sorcerer named Hrodr.”

“Farbauti I think will be sympathetic, but Hrodr didn’t like me at all,” Loki said.

“Royals,” Valkyrie sighed. “Useless, the lot of you. Well, while you were busy learning absolutely nothing about local politics, I was drinking with the soldiers who were supposed to be guarding us. And let me tell you, they’re surprisingly bad at holding their liquor for creatures that big, and their tongues are _very_ loose.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Ah, yes. So sorry for not instantly sussing out the intricacies of Jotunheim’s court over the course of one meal.”

“Tell us what you learned,” Thor said.

Valkyrie began recounting the information she’d gathered, and, reluctantly, Loki had to agree that she’d done much better on this count than he and Thor had (not that he’d been trying, he consoled himself). According to Valkyrie’s loose-tongued soldiers, there were two main factions among the Jotnar at the moment: one more or less headed by Farbauti, and one by somebody named Thrym. They’d split all the way back during the war with Asgard. 

Thrym’s faction used to be headed by Laufey.

_My parents were on opposite sides,_ Loki realized. His mental picture started rearranging itself.

After Laufey’s death, his faction’s grip on the throne had vanished, and an ad hoc Council had formed. Right now the Council was deadlocked. On one side, Farbauti, returned from exile to lead the people from their war-torn past into a better future; on the other, Thrym, Laufey’s old right hand man, who claimed he had as much right to the throne as Farbauti did.

“So basically you guys sound screwed,” Banner said.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Loki snapped.

Thor frowned thoughtfully. “I’d suspected something like this.”

Loki turned to him in surprise. “Really? How?”

“That meal,” Thor said. “There was as much said as there was unsaid, don’t you think?”

Loki remembered Thor’s near-silence during the meal and mentally cursed himself for assuming it was merely Thor being on good behavior. Thor did such a good job of acting innocent that sometimes even Loki forgot he had a cunning head on his shoulders. Loki himself had been hanging on by the skin of his teeth at that point, and hadn’t gotten any farther than suspecting there was more to the conversation than met the eye.

“Of course,” he lied smoothly.

“But it’s fine,” Thor said. “Politics exist everywhere. Loki and I have been dealing with situations like these for centuries. I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out. It’s good to go in prepared though. Thank you.” The last part to Valkyrie, who nodded at him.

“And it’s all very interesting,” Thor continued, his tone shifting, “which leads me to something else. Jotunheim is quite an interesting place. Far more interesting than I was ever led to believe.” He looked at Heimdall as he said it, clearly addressing him.

“That was the Allfather’s wish, not mine,” Heimdall said.

“And everyone followed the Allfather’s wishes,” Thor said. “You knew what Jotunheim was like before the war. Before the Casket was stolen. You saw how broken it had become.”

“You think I should have told you,” Heimdall said.

“Yes, I think you should have told me,” Thor said, voice steely. “My father’s secrets have a way of biting everyone in the arse. I know of at least two of them now, and one nearly destroyed my family and the other actually destroyed my planet, so forgive me if I’m not so keen on _secrets_.”

Loki’s heart sped up. It was thrilling to hear Thor speak ill of Odin, and thrilling to hear Thor speak sharply to Heimdall._’Nearly destroyed my family.’_ Which meant it wasn’t destroyed, which meant Loki, and it was stupidly touching. He thought of his own secret, the Tesseract hiding in his dimensional pocket. Thor would be furious when he found out.

“We’re going to have a long talk later,” Thor said. “And we’re going to discuss every little thing my father has ever tried to hide that you know about. The rest of you as well. Everything, no matter how small. No more secrets. No more lies.”

There was a tense silence.

“...am I exempt from this?” Banner said.

Exasperatedly, multiple Asgardians turned and began shouting at him all at once.

“Quiet!” Heimdall barked, an order. Everyone froze.

He looked at Thor.

“They’re coming.”

*

Loki rubbed his eyes, trying to will some energy back into them. He was exhausted, and his stomach yawned with the faint ache of going too long without a meal—and now, instead of food and a well-deserved rest, he had to turn himself Jotun and deal with Angrboda. Again.

He and Thor met the General more or less the same way they had the first time: twenty paces from the exit ramp of the Statesman, staring down a group of heavily armed Jotnar. The group was quite a bit smaller this time, perhaps a score of soldiers, and Angrboda didn’t look quite so fierce, but he didn’t look pleased about the situation either.

“My Prince,” Angrboda said, putting his hand over his head and bowing his head to Loki. He turned to Thor and spoke with quite a bit more venom. “_Odinson._ The Council has asked me to speak on their behalf once again, and I won’t mince words. You have your food. You have your water, your medicine. You said your farewell. Why are you still here?”

“About that—” Thor started, not even with his King voice, but with his foolish oaf voice, and Loki nearly elbowed him to make him shut up. Norns. Sometimes watching Thor fumble around was painful. 

“My friend,” Loki cut in smoothly. “A few matters have come to light that have delayed our departure. Might we prevail upon the Council to meet with us to discuss them? Sometime later today, or perhaps tomorrow?”

“I am sorry, my Prince,” Angrboda said. “There can be no delay. Already a larger force is being assembled, and their orders are not as kind as mine are.”

Now that Loki had a clearer picture of Jotun politics, he was unsurprised to hear it. It was probably Thrym. Loki beckoned Angrboda closer to speak in lower tones.

“Did the Council send you, or did Farbauti send you?”

“Farbauti is a Councilor,” Angrboda said, his pointed look making his meaning plain. “I would cut down this ship myself but for him.”

“His word means much to you,” Loki said.

“It means everything to me.”

Loki looked past him to the city slumping in the distance. Were there spears glinting in the sun or was he just imagining it? This was all a fool’s errand. Loki should just stay with the Casket and Thor should turn around and walk right back onto the ship and leave. Go to Earth. It wasn’t as though they’d never see each other again. They were young men. They had millennia to find their way back together.

And yet.

He could still close his eyes and see Asgard exploding. The Realm Eternal, gone in an instant. Thor, his untouchable brother, touched by Death, his eye torn out. Things could change so quickly. Could be lost. Tomorrow was never a guarantee.

Thor had kissed him.

Maybe Loki should just leave too. What did he owe this place, these people? Nothing.

He thought of the Tree, and Farbauti, and the children.

_’You’ll always be the God of Mischief, but you could be more.’_

_Is this what more feels like?_

“Do you still want to do this?” Loki said, turning to Thor.

Thor nodded. “I do. Do you?”

Loki’s magpie heart strained at its bonds. He turned back to Angrboda.

“Could we meet with the Council right now?”


	5. The Council

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter took me WEEKS to write lol *lays facedown on the ground*

The Council met in the Lesser Hall.

Loki wondered how big the Great Hall must be if this was the lesser one. The ceiling soared so high that it was lost to the shadows. A tiered dais took up an entire wall, set with six massive chairs made of the same black bone as the city gates. Each chair held an unsmiling face; even Farbauti gave no indication of warmth when Loki and Thor entered the room.

Two tiny Asgardian-sized chairs sat facing the dais. Loki almost laughed. They finally had furniture that fit them, and instead of feeling bigger he somehow felt even smaller.

“Thor, son of Odin, King of Asgard! Loki, child of Laufey, Prince of Jotunheim!”

_Is that who I am?_

It was a familiar voice announcing them. Bergelmir. Loki gave him a small nod, which he returned before taking a smaller seat off to the side. It was attached to a desk piled high with paper and pots of ink, and he perched behind it poised and ready to write. Angrboda strode to the dais and stationed himself at the bottom of the stairs at one corner, at attention.

“Please, have a seat,” Farbauti said to Loki and Thor, gesturing to the chairs.

“I’d prefer to stand,” Thor said.

“As you wish.”

Loki studied the six Councilors. Farbauti sat at one end, swathed up to his chin in gleaming black feathers. A jagged circlet dipped to a point on his brow, which together with the feathers and his tumble of hair lent him the look of some sort of predatory bird. Hrodr sat at his left, Loki’s right, looking sourer than he had before but just as gold-encrusted. The other four were completely unfamiliar. Loki tried to figure out which one was Thrym. Two of them looked like they were warriors, so he was probably one of those, although was he the one with the sharpened teeth or the one with the cruel eyes?

“This is what I was roused from bed for?” This from one of the non-warriors, a Jotun with a jowly face and a doughy middle. He looked down at Thor and Loki with open contempt. “They’re like ants.”

Thor ignored the insult. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us, all of you,” he said graciously. “I know the hour is early, but time seemed of the essence.”

Sharp Teeth laughed. Despite the harshness of his face, he didn’t sound unkind, and his tone was jovial. “Indeed, I imagine it was. Not so keen on having a few score Jotun spears shoved up your backsides, I’d wager.”

“I can’t believe I was woken for this. Why are we allowing Asgardians to call Council meetings?” Jowls said sourly.

Loki coughed politely and gave him a humorless smile. “I’m not Asgardian.”

“He is as Jotun as we are, Alvaldi,” Farbauti said. “He has every right.”

“As Jotun as _you_ are,” Jowls said. No, Alvaldi. “Look at the pair of you—undergrown, openly flaunting your _hair_—”

“You wish you had hair,” Sharp Teeth said. “An eyebrow or two might improve your face a bit.”

“_Councilors_,” Farbauti said sharply, “please. The matter at hand.” He leveled a look at Loki. “Prince Loki. What is your petition?”

Loki glanced quickly to Thor. He still wasn’t used to being addressed in favor of his brother; it kept taking him slightly aback. Thor gave him the slightest of nods, and Loki straightened and clasped his hands behind him.

“As I’m sure all of you know,” Loki said, “the Asgardian refugee vessel Statesman was forced to make landing here on Jotunheim for supplies. Your people were kind enough to provide the requested aid. However, the Asgardian people need to beg another favor of you.” 

“We no longer have a home,” Thor said, taking over. “Asgard has been destroyed completely. Our people used to be friends once, long ago. In the spirit of that friendship, and in the hope for a better future for both our people, we ask that you let us stay on Jotunheim. We—”

The entire Council erupted. 

Alvaldi and another Councilor sprang to their feet; Sharp Teeth was banging on the arm of his chair yelling at them to sit down; every voice was raised as they all tried to talk over each other at once.

All except for the warrior with the cruel eyes, who had been sprawled in his seat unmoving and untalking since Thor and Loki had entered the hall, and who had yet to take those eyes off of them for even a second. His and Loki’s gazes connected, and gooseflesh prickled the back of Loki’s neck.

A loud metallic bang cut through the clamor. Angrboda had drawn his weapons and crashed them together, and he stood holding them over his head, glaring, until everyone fell silent.

“Thank you, General,” Farbauti said.

“This is beyond the pale, Farbauti,” Alvaldi said, jowls wobbling as he shook his head back and forth. “You overstepped, giving them aid, meeting with them without us—”

“Loki is my child,” Farbauti said sharply. “I may meet with him as I see fit. And, please, point out where I overstepped with aid—we all agreed to send General Angrboda to treat on our behalf—”

The last Councilor spoke, the other one who had leapt to his feet, a Jotun with a youthful, handsome face and an imperious voice. Loki disliked him immediately. “General Angrboda has ever been Farbauti’s creature. I cautioned against him from the beginning.”

Sharp Teeth rolled his eyes. “Your arse would caution against your face, Baugi—”

“What is that even supposed to mean—”

Loki cleared his throat and they all turned to him.

“My friends,” Loki said. “The burden of blood is heavy between Asgard and Jotunheim. This is undeniable. Asgard does not ask forgiveness for its past transgressions, nor do we expect it to be freely given.”

“But if you’ll allow us,” Thor said, picking up the thread, “we’d like a chance to earn it.”

“Do you hear?” Alvaldi said. “The runt says “we” when he speaks of Asgardians. He is not one of us.”

_I’m not one of them, either. What am I, then?_

The thought sat sourly in his stomach.

_I am Loki, and I am alone._

Thor had kissed him.

Hrodr had been mostly silent, but now he leveled a look upon Thor and Loki. “Alvaldi’s words have a measure of truth in them, crass though they are,” he said, “but I do find myself curious. Asgard’s crimes against Jotunheim are severe. How exactly do you propose to earn a place here?”

“If you allow us to stay—” Thor started, and looked over at Loki like he was asking permission to continue, which Loki gave with a slightly canted eyebrow, “—I and my people will do everything in our power to help Jotunheim rebuild what has been destroyed. We have the—”

Hrodr scoffed, cutting him off. “We’re perfectly capable of fixing buildings on our own. What of everything else we lost? How can you help us rebuild that? Can you bring back the people? The game? The crops? Can you bring back the seasons to their full glory? Can you restore our standing in the Nine Realms? The pride and the joy we once had?”

Loki took a deep breath and emptied his mind and heart. It was now or never.

“I know little of joy,” Loki said, “but as for the rest...I believe the answer is yes, for we come to you with a gift.”

On the last word, Loki reached into his dimensional pocket and _pulled_.

He was prepared for the uproar this time, and he studied each of the Councilors for their reaction.

Farbauti’s hand flew to his chest, and he fell back in his seat, eyes wide. Sharp Teeth grinned, every pointed tooth on display, and he banged on the arm of his chair and _cheered_. Alvaldi turned purple with rage. The imperious youth, Baugi, leapt to his feet once more, exclaiming and gesticulating wildly.

None of those concerned Loki. He studied the remaining two.

Hrodr was sharing a look with the one Loki was assuming at this point was Thrym, and it was impossible to tell what passed between them. Understanding? Challenge? Hrodr turned his gaze back to Loki and leaned forward in his seat, clutching the arms, and the look in his eyes was hungry. Loki didn’t care for it in the slightest.

Thrym still sprawled in his chair, impassive. Loki met his glare with his own chin held high.

The Casket was cold in his hands, deeply so. He felt it down to his bones, and knew that if he’d been in his Asgardian form that it would have forced his body to change lest his arms freeze solid and shatter. He held onto it for as long as he could stand, then vanished it back into its home.

“Seize it immediately!” Alvaldi was crying. “General! I command you!”

Angrboda paid him no mind, and Loki only held his empty hands out and waited for the outcry to die down enough for him to speak.

“As you can see,” Loki said, “the gift we offer is no small thing.”

“A gift,” Alvaldi said. “This is no gift. The Casket is ours. It belongs to us. This is outrageous. _Outrageous_. That this...this…_Asgardian_ should come sniveling into our court, holding our own treasures as hostage to this disgusting deal. We should throw them in the dungeons, we should have them _hanged_.”

“No one is having anyone hanged,” Farbauti said.

“I think it’s marvelous,” Sharp Teeth said. “The lost Prince, savior of the Bloom, returned to us bearing the Casket. We haven’t had hope like this for far too long. I think it’s just what we need. Crown this one. He has the birthright. Let us restore this realm to its former glory.”

“Are you _mad_?” Baugi said, aghast. “You want all the goodwill of our people foisted upon this little rat and his rat brethren instead of upon us?”

Loki blinked, inwardly stunned. Crown him? He agreed with Baugi, the idea was mad.

“Why not?” Sharp Teeth said. “Fat lot of good the Council has been doing. We bicker like geese, and never agree on anything. We have Council meetings to talk about Council meetings. But if we had a leader again, someone to inspire hope—someone with the Casket—imagine what we might accomplish—”

“If I might interject,” Loki said. “I don’t seek the throne.”

It was almost surprising to hear himself speak those words. Asgard’s throne had been such a sore spot between him and Odin and Thor for such an incredibly long time. Not that he’d wanted to be King, exactly—the day-to-day of it seemed hideously boring—but the fact that his father and brother had never even considered him a worthy candidate made him crave it with a desperation bordering on obsession. There was a time he would not have turned down any throne, any crown, anywhere.

He’d had his taste of Kinghood twice now though, and it wasn’t one that he savored.

Thrym finally spoke. His voice was a harsh grating rumble.

“All of you talk, and yet none of you say anything. Well, here is what I say. Let the Asgardians stay here that we may slaughter them in their beds. Let the bastard’s head roll for treason, and take the Casket from his stinking corpse. The sentence for Asgardians is death, and the sentence for regicide is death. Let Death have her due.”

Loki had been able to let most of the Council’s bickering and insults run off his back, but Thrym’s words sent a particular chill through him. His pointed hatred felt extremely personal in a way that Alvaldi’s and Baugi’s didn’t.

_Leave_, the Tesseract whispered. _Leave all of them. Run._

“Regicide,” Sharp Teeth said. “More like a mercy killing. Jotunheim was dying under Laufey’s rule. The war with Asgard brought us nothing but sorrow and ruin. We need to go forward, not back.”

Farbauti spoke up with firm authority. “No one is being crowned. No one is being hanged. No one is being beheaded. No one is being slaughtered in their beds. I’ve had quite enough of the hysterics. Are we a Council or are we children? A petition is brought before us. Let us consider the terms and vote.”

Thrym regarded Farbauti as he spoke like he was an unpleasant thing he’d like to scrape off the bottom of his boot.

“What, exactly, are the terms you propose?” Hrodr said, directing his question to Loki. “Specifically.”

Loki pulled up a mental list of what they’d talked about on the Statesman. He’d assumed Thor would be having this talk and he didn’t have a speech ready. He was increasingly uncertain of his own status here, and so he kept his language carefully neutral, trying to avoid any use of the words _we_ or _you_. 

“Asgard requests a small piece of land, enough to house the remaining people and provide food and drinkable water for them. It would remain separate from Jotunheim in government, but open to travel and trade. King Thor would meet with Jotunheim’s leaders at least twice a year for ongoing negotiations, or more often if necessary. In return for this act of clemency, Asgard will work with Jotunheim to use the power of the Casket of Ancient Winters to restore as much as it is able. It is an arrangement of mutual benefit.”

“For how long does Asgard request to stay?” Farbauti said.

“In perpetuity.”

“What of the Casket?” Hrodr said. “Who holds it?”

“I do,” Loki said firmly. “At the moment I am neither of Asgard nor of Jotunheim, and thus a neutral party to ensure ongoing peace between the two people.”

“How do we know this Casket is even real?” Baugi said. The petulant set of his mouth made Loki itch to punch it off his face. “It could be a trick. An illusion.”

Hrodr snorted. “If you had a magical cell in your body you’d know it was real.”

Farbauti clapped his hands twice. “We have all heard the terms. The Council will take a recess and reconvene for a vote.”

The Councilors rose and a small amount of tension drained from Loki’s shoulders. Bergelmir ushered him and Thor back out into the hallway and closed the door behind him when he went back in, leaving them alone.

“You did spectacularly in there,” Thor said.

Loki was staring at his own hands. Blue, the backs of them covered in faintly visible lines, his nails black. He’d never looked in a mirror like this. Never seen more than just his own hands. He wondered what he’d find under his clothes.

_’Neither of Asgard nor of Jotunheim.’_

He was starting to feel a bit shaky. He wanted Thor to hug him again, more than he wanted anything else in the universe at the moment, but he couldn’t show weakness. Not now. He clenched his hand into a fist.

“It’s just politics,” Loki said. “They weren’t any worse in there than a state dinner with Vanaheim and Nidavellir sniping at each other. I can’t tell you how many of those I had to get through when I was—”

He cut himself off. When he was masquerading as Odin. It was still a hurtful thing between them, and he didn’t want to poke at it right now. Thor didn’t let him avoid it, though.

“When you were the Allfather,” Thor said. Loki flinched, but Thor didn’t sound angry, at least not this time. “You did better as King than I have. What? It’s true. You didn’t blow up the entire planet.”

“No, I just sat around in my bathrobe eating grapes,” Loki said. “_Gods_.”

Thor rubbed at the edge of his eyepatch, then his beard, then finally said, “I still don’t know why you did it. Pretended to be Father. Why did you?”

Loki’s reserves were low and Thor sounded curious, maybe a little hurt, but still not angry, and he found himself answering the question. Maybe simply because Thor had finally asked it, when he had never bothered to before.

“The one who captured me after I fell—he imprisoned me, held me in isolation—did terrible things—yet Odin’s memory is the one that gives me more pain, because he was supposed to love me. You know, I think he wanted me to do it? He let me walk right up to him and touch his forehead, like this—” Loki found himself lightly touching Thor’s face with his Jotun hand, and praying it wouldn’t burn him. Thor looked ready to cry, and if he started Loki thought he might join him. He wondered what Thor saw when he looked at him in this form. If he still saw his brother at all.

“I should have known it was just another one of his tricks,” Loki said, letting his hand drop.

Thor opened his mouth to speak, but Bergelmir chose that moment to open the door and interrupt them.

“They’re ready,” Bergelmir said.

*

The Councilors were back in their seats. The part of Loki that balked at authority hated to see it. It made him feel like a dog on a leash, trotted out as its master saw fit, and he tried to kill the resentment he felt bubbling up. Loki and Thor resumed their places standing before the dais.

Farbauti stood as well.

“This is the ruling of the First Council of Jotunheim.

“Farbauti. If I had been more successful in my youth there never would have been a war with Asgard in the first place. I do not blame children for the crimes of their parents. For the sake of progress, friendship, and family, and in the spirit of reconciliation, I vote aye. Let the Asgardians stay.”

He sat, and Hrodr rose.

“Hrodr. My misgivings are many, but Farbauti’s judgment is better than most, and Jotunheim needs her Casket. I vote aye.”

Sharp Teeth rose next.

“Gunnlod. Aye.”

“Alvaldi. Laufey was a stain upon us, and I’ll not see his get or a pack of Asgardians tarnish our soil. I vote nay, and that we only let the interlopers leave once they surrender the Casket, which is rightfully ours.”

“Baugi. Jotunheim has no use for vermin. Nay.”

Thrym rose last, and he towered terrifyingly tall. Farbauti had only two feet on Loki, and Angrboda was twice his height, but Thrym was taller even than the General. To his disgust, Loki saw that Thrym had skulls swinging from his belt. Such a tacky display ironically dampened his nerves.

“Thrym. This is a farce and has been ever since we received Asgard’s distress call. That Farbauti even convened this Council calls into question his soundness of mind, and that you all have taken it seriously calls into question yours. It is obvious that the Council has reached the end of its useful life—as it stands now, it is a threat to the stability of Jotunheim, as is the existence of Laufey’s bastard child.”

The feathers of Farbauti’s mantle were trembling, the rage on his face plain. 

“Have you lost your senses?” Farbauti said.

“I’m the only one who has any left.”

“What are you suggesting?” Hrodr said. “That we disband the Council and have Prince Loki killed? And then what?”

“You know what,” Farbauti said. “He wants the throne.”

Thrym smirked. “I was Laufey’s second, and his heir in all but blood. I have the right.”

“Your claim is weak,” Farbauti said. “You cannot take the throne without an army, which you don’t have.”

“You’re either mad or stupid if you think the people will take kindly to you letting Asgardians settle on our soil. They’ll turn on this Council like wild dogs devouring their own, and everyone will suffer. We need a ruler, one with a firm hand, who will deal with pests like these—” and Thrym gestured to Thor and Loki “—in the manner that befits them. ”

“I smell something,” Gunnlod said, “and I can’t tell if it’s your breath or your arse. Sit down, Thrym, and stop embarrassing yourself.”

Bergelmir piped up, voice timid. “I’m sorry, for the record...is that three ayes and three nays?”

Thrym turned to snarl at him, and Loki’s temper, frayed after two days of stress and exhaustion, finally snapped. 

“This is ridiculous,” Loki said sharply. “The Asgardians—_we_—have come to you under the old treaties, flying a banner of truce. We have made a request, and we have offered you a gift in return. And instead of being heard out like civilized people, we are insulted and threatened with the dungeons and execution and extinction. We didn’t have to offer you the Casket at all, and frankly, if this is the way we’re to be treated—” His voice cracked, and he paused for breath, then continued a bit more calmly. “We would have left yesterday if not for the things I saw here. I have the Casket. I want to help you. But I cannot do it if you don’t let us stay.”

Thrym pointed at him, a spear of ice forming around his arm and hand, its tip gleaming cruelly.

“If none of you cowards will do what needs to be done, I will. You, bastard, surrender the Casket now.”

The stench of ozone filled the air and Loki felt his hair raising off his head. Thor had summoned the lightning to him.

“Disarm yourself,” Thor growled, “or I’ll do it for you.”

Loki normally thought Thor too quick to violence, but right now he was glad of it. The decision he and Thor had made to come here to this Council room had been painful every step of the way, and to have it met like this touched a deep wound inside him. No one ever wanted him, even when he was only trying to help.

“I’d listen to him if I were you,” Loki said. “He probably means that literally.”

Angrboda had drawn both of his swords, teeth bared. Hrodr’s hands were glowing faintly purple with summoned seidr. Loki didn’t bother to summon his own; he had Thor, the Tesseract, and rage on his side. He sneered at Thrym.

“Go on and kill me,” Loki said. “My seidr will die with me and then you’ll never be able to access the Casket, and you’ll have killed the Savior of the Bloom besides. Your dreams will be nothing but ash and your planet will fall again into its long slow death spiral. Do it.”

Thrym’s ice spear didn’t waver. He and Loki stared each other down, unblinking. 

Something in Thrym’s look shifted.

“Weregild,” Thrym grated out.

Loki blinked, momentarily nonplussed.

“Pardon?”

“For the murder of Laufey. I name you kinslayer and I demand the Casket as weregild.”

“No.”

“It is my right. You deny me?”

“Loki—” Farbauti said, sounding agonized. “Don’t—”

“I deny you,” Loki said. He only just managed to keep his voice from shaking. “I DENY YOU.”

“You heard him!” Thrym roared. “You all heard him! He denied me! Farbauti, tell your wretched child what he’s just done.”

“He didn’t know—” Farbauti said.

“TELL HIM.”

The feathers of Farbauti’s mantle trembled. He closed his eyes, and when he spoke, his voice sounded dull, like he was reciting something by rote. “For the act of taking a life, whether by accidental means, self-defense, or murder, weregild may be demanded from the perpetrator of a value proportional to the victim’s status. If weregild is denied, the aggrieved party may call for the debt to be repaid by...by blood. It means…”

“It means,” Thrym said. “That we fight. I’ll grind you into the dirt until you beg me for the killing blow, and then everything you possess becomes forfeit to me. You spoke the words. It’s legally binding. All of you heard it! All of you!”

“And when I grind _you_ into the dirt, everything you possess becomes forfeit to me?” Loki said. “_Done._”

“Wait,” Farbauti said, strangled. “We can’t...that is...not here...there are procedures that have to be followed...”

Loki felt a stab of remorse that he’d upset Farbauti, but not enough to overcome the adrenaline coursing through him.

“How does this work? Blades? Seidr? Both? Don’t think for one minute, you—”

A shower of sparks went up, momentarily blinding everyone and drawing attention to the source. Hrodr.

“The Rite of Blood Vengeance is sacred. The arena must be prepared. The combatants must submit themselves to a binding magical oath. It is no frivolous thing. We will need at least a week, possibly two—”

“A month,” Farbauti said quickly. “We cannot possibly hold it until after Midsummer.”

“A month,” Hrodr agreed. 

Loki was still a ball of temper. He opened his mouth to spit out something vile and probably dig himself in deeper, but fortunately Thor opened his first.

“What of our people? What will they do for that month?”

“I think it acceptable that the Asgardians should be granted temporary amnesty until the vendetta is settled,” Hrodr said. “What say you all?”

“Aye,” Farbauti and Gunnlod said simultaneously.

“Nay,” Alvaldi sputtered.

Baugi’s eyes were darting back and forth between Thrym and Loki. “...Aye. It will be amusing to watch Thrym win.”

Thrym grinned, and finally lowered his arm.

“You’ve made a mistake, bastard,” Thrym said.

Loki smiled, the one that he knew looked a bit feral, with too many teeth.

“That remains to be seen. A month. I look forward to it.”

Hrodr raised his arms in the air, and two glowing purple orbs appeared at his fingertips. He flicked each of them away and they floated upwards and then separated, one towards Loki and one towards Thrym. When the orb touched Loki’s chest, it sank into him, and he felt it catch somewhere inside of him like a hook. Hrodr spoke.

“Should either party run, their life is forfeit.”

The thing pulsed in Loki’s chest, hot and sharp, and nearly made him cry out. 

“Should either party refuse to fight, their life is forfeit.”

It pulsed again.

“Upon completion of the Rite of Blood Vengeance, the vanquished forfeits all possessions to the victor.”

It pulsed a third time, then subsided, leaving Loki clutching his chest, teeth gritted.

“It is done.”

Farbauti sighed mournfully. “Norns preserve us all.”


	6. Starfall

Afterwards, Loki and Thor were shown to their new quarters in the palace. It was ostensibly because they were royal guests, but Loki knew the truth of it. The Jotnar wanted to keep an eye on them. He couldn’t even be offended. It seemed fitting, anyway—each group, Asgardian and Jotun, considered him a member of the other, so why shouldn’t he have to sleep in the place that highlighted that the most and let him rest the least?

Thor’s quarters were separate from Loki’s, though in the same wing. Bergelmir escorted them both, and his excited nervous chatter filled the air. That had been an exciting meeting hadn’t it? Bergelmir had never attended a more exciting one. And this way was the kitchen, and the library was over there, and oh, don’t go down that hallway, the ceiling collapsed a few centuries ago. 

Their accomodations were in one of the few wings of the palace that was actually still intact enough to use. The palace hadn’t fared any better than the rest of the city in the last millennium, and according to Bergelmir perhaps only twenty percent of it was usable in any fashion. 

“This is your hallway,” Bergelmir said, gesturing down an icy corridor. Two torches were lit, one for each of two doors, and only shadows lay beyond. “The floor ends in a nasty dropoff past the second torch, so you won’t want to venture that way.”

“Thank you,” Loki told him, and Bergelmir sketched them a shallow bow before leaving.

Thor squeezed his shoulder and Loki tried not to just sway into him. Gods, he was exhausted. His adrenaline had burnt out and all that was left was a vague queasiness.

“Let’s get some rest,” Thor said. “We can talk tomorrow. You look dead on your feet.”

“I feel dead on my feet.”

“Til the morning, then,” Thor said, and gave him another squeeze. Loki looked at their separate doors, and swallowed thickly. He didn’t really want to part from Thor’s side.

“Til the morning,” Loki said.

He went alone into his own rooms. The first chamber was a sitting room, the second a bedroom. He stared at the wall like he could see through it to Thor’s chambers on the other side.

Rooming next to Thor like this made Loki nostalgic in a way that he hated. They had grown up with an arrangement very similar to this one. It made Loki think of sneaking out together when they were supposed to be sleeping; of falling asleep in each other’s rooms after adventures or arguments or simply late nights drinking and laughing; of the easy closeness they had shared for so long before everything started to go sideways. He hated it because he knew the memories were selective, and that he was longing for a past that didn’t actually exist, scrubbed clean of everything that _had_ made it go sideways. And he hated it because it left him longing for his brother even more than before, if that were possible, and also terrified.

Thor had kissed him, and said that he would again. Did that mean Thor no longer thought of him as a brother at all?

Loki had told Thor once that he wasn’t his brother, but he hadn’t meant it. How could he? Thor was the only constant of his inconstant life. Loki didn’t desire Thor in spite of their brotherhood, he desired him because of it. It was wrong, he knew that. It was just another one of the things inside him that wasn’t made quite right, or that had been broken somehow. He couldn’t imagine Thor being broken in such a fundamental way as well.

If Thor no longer thought of him as a brother…

Loki didn’t know what he would do. Fling himself into the sea, maybe.

Fortunately, he was too exhausted to stew on it, or on the travesty of a Council meeting, and instead he flung himself into his enormous new bed and slept for an entire day.

*

Thor woke him the next morning by coming into his bedchamber unannounced and jumping heavily up onto the end of the bed. 

“Go away,” Loki said, pulling the blankets over his head preemptively just in case Thor decided to throw the drapes open. 

“I called for breakfast,” Thor said. He grabbed Loki’s ankle through the blanket and gave it a squeeze. Loki’s eyes flew open with a start. He couldn’t remember if he’d fallen asleep in his Asgardian skin or his Jotun one, and he was suddenly self conscious that maybe Thor had caught him sleeping in the wrong one. He thrust his arm out of the blanket. It was pale and peach-colored, and went to gooseflesh immediately in the chill air, and he sighed with relief.

Right on the heels of his sigh, he remembered his worry from the night before, and a little pit in his stomach yawned open.

What were they right now? Brothers still? Something else?

“I thought we’d eat,” Thor continued, as if he had no idea Loki was having a minor crisis under his blankets, “and then I can go back to the ship, and you can start doing Casket-y things here in the city. With tensions being what they are right now it’s probably best to begin building up goodwill as soon as possible.”

Loki finally sat up, letting the covers fall down to his waist. He saw Thor’s gaze snag on the scar on his chest, and he realized suddenly that Thor hadn’t seen him in any sort of undress for over half a decade. He pulled the covers back up, discomfited.

“You still haven’t yelled at me,” Loki said.

“For what?”

Loki gave him a withering look. “Come now, you only look stupid.”

Thor laughed. “Well, I suppose there’s the lying about the Bifrost, the hiding the Casket from me, the pulling a knife on me, the entering into ill-advised blood feuds… Have I forgotten anything?”

“That’s quite enough for two days, don’t you think?”

Thor took hold of Loki’s ankle again, and his gaze grew soft yet serious.

“There’s also the willingness to risk your life for the sake of other people,” Thor said. “And the attempt to do the right thing despite how much I know you’d rather be doing almost anything else. Those things aren’t worthless.”

“Stop,” Loki said. This was far too much sincerity for so early in the morning, and he was still spread far too thin. “You really have changed. I think I might prefer it when you just yell at me and threaten to break my neck.”

Thor squeezed his ankle, still serious. “I know that for a long time I was arrogant. And a fool. And not nearly as good of a brother as I should have been. I’m sorry I was like that. I’m trying to be better.”

“You really are a fool,” Loki said, his throat tight. He couldn’t take any more of this open earnestness. He tried to give Thor’s shoulder a shove, but Thor only caught his hand and gave it a squeeze, and Loki, to his horror, felt his cheeks heat up.

A tapping at the door out in the sitting room saved him.

“There’s breakfast,” Thor said brightly.

*

It turned out that Thor had already been to the Statesman and back while Loki slept. “Apparently you’re the god of no sleep as well as thunder,” Loki grumbled as he shoveled eggs and tiny fried fish into his mouth.

“They’ve relocated us north of the city,” Thor said. “Still on the coast, and with a lake to the east.”

“Saltwater and fresh,” Loki said.

“Yes, and we’ve been given leave to fish both, and the lake water is potable.”

Thor fairly inhaled his food as well, and gulped down his drink. Loki took a sip of his and found that it was both incredibly hot and incredibly strong, and he made a face at the bitter aftertaste.

“How did you pour this down your throat without burning a hole through it?” Loki said. He sniffed at his cup. “And what is it?”

“I don’t know,” Thor said, shrugging cheerfully. “I need to get going, though. Val has got everyone hauling every scrap of usable material they can find out of the ship so we can start building some shelters. No one wants to sleep in there anymore.”

Loki took another sip of his drink and rolled it around his mouth, trying to savor the bitterness rather than spit it out. It was little wonder that the people were eager to get off that floating metal box. Maybe the leftovers from Sakaar had had a peaceful time there, but he wagered that most of the Asgardians had spent the absolute worst days of their lives on it. 

“I’ll see you afterwards,” Thor said. He rose, wiping his mouth, and then let his hand brush Loki’s shoulder on the way by in a lingering caress. The surprise of it stopped Loki from catching his hand and tugging him back and seeing exactly what Thor intended by it, and so he was left watching Thor’s retreating back with his cheeks hot and his stomach yawning once again, and wondering how in Bor’s name this was his life right now.

*

The Casket sat on the table, frost spreading out in a ring around it. Loki sat cross-legged on his too-large divan, staring, his mind full of question after question that he had no answer to.

He tried to recall everything Angrboda had let drop in that initial tour of the city. The combination of the Bifrost and the Casket had caused the Bloom. The Bloom brought life back to Jotunheim. Seasons. Enough of whatever Casket-specific seidr they needed to repair the living ice they normally used to construct their civilization (and wasn’t that still a novel thought, the idea of frost giants and _civilization_?). What did that mean? What was this Casket-specific seidr? What was its source? Who had even made the damned thing?

He still had no idea what the Casket was even capable of. He’d used it for one thing and one thing only—to freeze things. It was clearly capable of more, but he had no idea how to activate it. The Bloom had happened accidentally. He couldn’t just go out and start freezing things and hope for the best. He’d shatter the false image of himself as the Savior of the Bloom instantly.

Incidentally, just how far did this image extend? Angrboda had said that everyone had thought him dead, and that they’d mourned him. Loki was glad the news of his death had spread so far—that was the entire point of that ridiculous play he’d staged on Asgard, after all. But how would the Jotnar commoners react to the news of his return? Would they be like Angrboda and Gunnlod?

Loki thought of the hungry way Hrodr had looked at the Casket. Alvaldi’s mewling. Thrym’s open threat. The duel he'd allowed himself to be provoked into. The duel was a distraction, he knew. He’d known at even as he was accepting it, though he couldn’t feel sorry that he’d done so. It was just something to keep him in one place and make him let his guard down thinking that he was safe until the month was over. He would need to watch his back the entire time, he was certain of it.

And in the meantime… He needed to learn how to use the Casket, and quickly.

And probably also train. Years lounging around as Odin hadn’t exactly left him in top fighting shape.

And try not to blush himself to death like an untouched youth every time Thor looked at him.

It was a tall order. He closed his eyes and thought longingly of home. Unbidden, the memory surfaced of taking the steps up to Frigga’s tower three at a time like he’d always done, and how she would envelop him in the scent of orange blossoms and clean wool, and he would put his head on her shoulder while she stroked his hair and hummed his frayed nerves away. He wanted it so badly that it left a physical pain in his chest.

_You’ll never have it again and it’s your own fault. Stop wallowing._

He opened his eyes and stared grimly at the Casket.

It was time to get to work.

*

Loki spent the next week avoiding everybody that he reasonably could and giving himself a crash course in the Casket of Ancient Winters. 

In the mornings he’d wake in his too-large bed, pale and cold. Now that he wasn’t expecting to meet with hordes of angry Jotnar, the idea of being Jotun all the time was simply too much, and he kept his Asgardian form despite the physical discomfort. He’d shiver into his clothes and then knock on Thor’s door. Thor was always gone already, which was both disappointing and slightly relieving. 

After that bit of self-torture, Loki would spend hours in the library reading. He had visited it with low hopes initially considering the state of the rest of Utgard, but it turned out to have more resources than he’d feared, and the librarian was a tart Jotun with wispy white hair named Aegir, who was more than happy to help him search for whatever he wished despite his wearing the wrong skin.

His first day in the library, Bergelmir found him with an invitation to lunch with Farbauti. Despite his initial desire to disappear into the shelving, Loki’s curiosity about his dam won out over his anxiety. When he showed up, Farbauti was so genuinely happy to see him, his smile so warm, Loki felt like it thawed five years of frost off of his heart. He had lunch with Farbauti every day thereafter, and always left a little lighter than when he’d arrived.

After lunch, he’d spend several hours in his bedroom with the door locked, probing the Casket with his own seidr, trying to use what he’d learned to figure out the internal workings. It was slow, and frustrating. He felt like he was trying to understand a language that was just close enough to his own tongue that it sounded familiar while at the same time being completely unintelligible.

That usually carried him through to dinner, which he spent eating at his desk in the sitting room and dealing with the correspondence which had piled up during the day. The correspondence mostly consisted of invitations to dine with various Jotnar who wanted to meet him, and “dealing” with it consisted of throwing it in the garbage. Loki had no time for this particular kind of politics right now. Throwing the invitations away was a political move all on its own, but he hoped that the impartiality of his disdain would be enough to hold it all at bay for a little while longer.

At some point, Thor would come to collect him.

Loki’s heart leapt into his throat each time he heard Thor’s distinctive knock. He’d school his features so that when he opened the door Thor would be met with a cool mask of neutrality instead of the vapid lovestruck expression that kept trying to claw its way onto his face, and Thor would give him a cheeky grin and offer his elbow and say “Shall we?”, and Loki would push past him with a snort, and they’d go together down to the training ring and beat each other bloody. Loki looked forward to that part of the day. It was the only time that his brain wasn’t working overtime.

Afterwards, they’d share a drink in Loki’s chambers while complaining about their respective days. Then Thor would give Loki an earth-shaking hug and kiss him tenderly somewhere on his face—his cheek, his forehead, his eyelids—but never his mouth, and it left Loki trembling and burning for it—and then Thor would leave to go sleep in his own bed, and Loki would lie awake for too long wishing that he’d asked Thor to stay.

“I need to practice using the Casket,” Loki said one evening, swirling his drink around and watching the alcohol coat the glass in little fingers. It was hideously green and hideously anise-flavored and he loved it. “But I don’t want anyone to see me.”

“What about the ruins?” Thor suggested. “That old temple I found that first day. It’s pretty enclosed, and far enough outside the city that it shouldn’t attract attention— 

“But close enough to get there on foot,” Loki mused.

It was a sound idea. 

Thor left him that night with a kiss to the hinge of his jaw, right under his ear, and Loki heard himself sigh. He realized he was tipping his head to encourage Thor to keep going. He wanted it so badly he could almost feel it, how Thor’s mouth would make a hot line up his jaw, how their mouths would slot so perfectly together. When Thor pulled away after only the one kiss, Loki felt the beginning of a whine start to escape him. He clamped down on it viciously, his cheeks flushing, and his hands spasmed on Thor’s forearms. Gods, he was a mess.

_I said I would ask for more kisses. Maybe he means to actually make me, the wretched thing._

Loki couldn’t, though. Speaking so brazenly of his long-hidden desires wasn’t something he had the words for.

The next morning, after another night spent alone, instead of going to the library Loki cast his “pay-no-attention-to-me” glamour and stole out of the city. He shifted to his ermine form once he was outside of the walls and made his way to the temple.

As he neared it, he could start to sense the land again, just as he had the first time he’d been here. Maybe it was something about this place. The flowers that Thor had caused to spring up were still there, beckoning Loki up the cracked stairs and into the cool gloom of the temple interior. He shifted Asgardian as he ascended, his ermine form dissolving in a wash of green and gold.

Stones from the ceiling littered the ground inside. A large raised platform in the center looked like it had once held an altar, though to what god Loki didn’t know. A chill ran through him and he shuddered like a dog throwing off water. The Casket pulsed in its dimensional pocket.

_Want to be let out, do you?_

As always, manifesting the Casket left him with a bone-deep frozen ache. His hands started to turn blue where he was touching it, and he cursed himself for his weakness—both that his Asgardian form was too feeble to hold the Casket, and that he was still so resistant to taking his Jotun form that he’d even attempted it.

The Casket left him no choice however, and the instant his form shifted completely, it flared with blue light.

It had never done that before. Loki nearly dropped it completely. Its seidr had flared as well, blinding his witchsight as well as his regular sight, and he staggered trying to keep a grip on it and not let his hands fly to his face to cover his eyes.

When his vision cleared, his mouth fell open.

The temple had been all rough weathered gray stone before, cast in shadows cut through with weak beams of morning sunlight. Now, it was _shimmering_. The image of another temple lay over it, whole where this one was broken, not made of stone, but of ornately worked ice, refracting rainbows in every direction in a coruscating curtain of light. The air hummed, and the phantom ice resonated with it.

Loki looked down at his hands, where the Casket was pulsing in time with the humming vibrations in the air.

“Valhalla and the Nine,” Loki breathed, awestruck.

It felt like being by the Tree. Loki didn’t know what he was seeing. A vision? An illusion? Something else? Slowly, the image faded away, leaving him with a sense of loss. He felt like there was something he was supposed to do, though he didn’t have any idea what. Nothing happened for several more minutes though, until finally with a sigh he gently set the Casket down on the platform in the middle of the room and sat down next to it.

“I guess I’ve brought you to the right place,” he murmured.

*

The morning’s experiments went well, and Loki showed up for lunch with Farbauti brimming over with questions.

“What is that ruin to the south?” Loki asked, sprinkling his food with what he hoped was pepper. They were eating some sort of oily fish stewed with kelp and an herb he’d never tasted before. Jotun food was nothing that Loki would consider comfort food, but he found it agreed with his stomach, and even his tastebuds, shockingly well. He might resent it if it didn’t make him feel so much better than Asgardian food ever had.

“Which one?” Farbauti said.

Loki hadn’t realized there might be more ruins. Foolish. Of course there were. It was easy sometimes to think of Jotunheim as being only Utgard.

“The one you can see from the library tower when it’s clear,” Loki said.

Farbauti’s mouth thinned, and he jabbed at a piece of fish in his stew.

“Starfall.”

“That’s an odd name.”

“It had another, long ago, but Starfall is what people call it now.”

“Is it a temple?”

“It was.”

Farbauti set his spoon down with a click and wiped his mouth roughly.

“What happened to it?” Loki asked, unwilling to let it go even though it was clear that Farbauti was uncomfortable. He was too curious about what had happened there this morning.

“Why do you care?” Farbauti asked, more sharply than he’d ever spoken to Loki before.

“My apologies,” Loki said. “It’s only that I can see it so well from the library, and I found myself curious. It seems like it must have once been very beautiful.”

Farbauti sighed, and his shoulders deflated.

“I must apologize as well. The temple was very beautiful once, yes, but it is also the site of one of my worst memories. But since you are here with me now, and alive and well to hear it, I shall tell you.” Farbauti paused, gaze distant, and then said, “Starfall is where you were taken from me.”

“Oh,” Loki said dumbly.

He’d thought to have a conversation about the mysteries of seidr, and the unexpected glimpse into his past instead left him taken aback. Odin’s words echoed in his head.

_’In the aftermath of the battle, I went into the temple and I found a baby. Small for a giant's offspring. Abandoned, suffering, left to die. Laufey's son.’_

“He told me…” Loki started, voice rough. “_Odin_ told me that he found me in a temple, left to die. Another one of his lies.”

“What do you mean?”

“What you told me by the Tree, and just now. How he ripped me from your arms—”

“Oh no, my sweet child,” Farbauti said. He caught Loki’s trembling hand up in his own. “Utgard was in chaos then. Laufey and I…” He made a noise of frustration. “How much do you know about the war?”

Loki’s throat was still tight, and he summarized as sparsely as possible. “Our history tutors taught us that the Jotnar had been trying to conquer Midgard, and that Asgard stopped them.” 

“Then listen to me well, for unlike your tutors I was there. Bolthorn was our leader when the tensions with Asgard started. He was old, and weak, and Laufey despised him. Laufey...he wasn’t any kind of ruler back then. He was just a youth like any other, though perhaps full of more fire than most. He began to agitate for a coup. I was with him at first, but…Laufey wanted war, and I wanted peace. He went further than I could stomach. I tried to stop him. It made him so angry... We fell out… I was carrying you in my belly by that time, and I fled. Laufey had gathered a following and I feared for our lives if we had stayed. Bolthorn fell while I was in hiding, and when Laufey took over the first thing he did was attack Midgard to provoke Asgard… And the second thing he did was send soldiers to find me. Find you.”

“Me.”

“You were a newborn, the tiniest sweetest little thing. I went to Starfall for sanctuary. Someone there betrayed us. Told Laufey we were there, and that you were...that you were small. Laufey couldn’t tolerate any hint that he might be weak, or have anything to do with Asgardians. So he...his soldiers…”

“They’re the ones who took me,” Loki said softly. “They’re the ones who left me to die.” _My birthright._

“Yes. The city was falling. The intention was to...to sacrifice you…”

“Odin did save me, then,” Loki said. Something enormous lodged itself in his chest. He couldn’t find the edges of it.

“I’m sorry to tell you these things,” Farbauti said. His own voice was thick. “But you deserve to know. I must be grateful that he took you when he did, but I mourn the loss of every day he had you.”

“What did you mean when you said I had something to do with Asgardians?”

“Not just you. Us. My stature...my hair...it’s clear I have Asgardian blood in me. And you as well.”

Loki stared at Farbauti, at the long tumble of glossy black hair that fell in loose waves around his shoulders, and then touched his own.

“Asgardian blood?”

“Asgard and Jotunheim weren’t always at war. There was a time…” Farbauti sighed. “Gunnlod had an Asgardian lover long ago. As did many others. Odin’s own father—”

“Bor?” Loki said, voice strangled. He’d never known the old man, but he’d grown up with nothing but tales of his bravery and prowess, many of which involved hunting down the beastly frost giants and slaying them in their lairs.

“Bor and Bestla were one of Utgard’s most poorly-kept secrets.”

Loki scrubbed his hand over his face while his internal map of the world rearranged itself yet again.

“That’s what Alvaldi meant when he spoke of us openly flaunting our hair,” Loki blurted out, suddenly connecting something.

“Yes. Under Laufey’s rule, any hint of friendliness towards Asgard was stamped out...many people plucked their heads bare, out of fear or shame or both.”

“Did you?”

“I used to. I no longer have any shame. Why should I cause myself suffering over something that I am? It is simply a fact of my existence, like that my eyes are red.”

Loki looked down at his own hands. He hadn’t wanted to change that morning until the Casket had forced him. Shame. Yes, he was ashamed of his Jotun form. He looked again to Farbauti and found him looking back with a gentle kind of warmth that shamed him even further, that he was here dining with his own parent while wearing Asgardian skin. He suddenly couldn’t bear it.

“I’m sorry,” Loki said. “I must excuse myself. I…have much to think about.”

Farbauti’s kind, sad eyes followed him all the way out the door.


	7. Visions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *note: there's a bit of smut at the end of this chapter that was bothering me, and I rewrote it in May 2020. it doesn't have any bearing on the plot

Loki didn’t actually want to think. His thoughts were knife-edged things, and he was afraid to cut himself. 

He went back to his rooms. The bed had been turned down and the fire built while he was out, as they had been every day so far. Today it made him frown. Who exactly was his chamber servant, anyway? He’d been so far in his own head the last week that he realized he wouldn’t even recognize the person coming into his rooms every day.

It would be laughably easy for Thrym to take advantage of this. He’d need to change his wards. He wanted no one setting foot in here other than himself or Thor, servant or nobleman alike, not even Farbauti. While he was at it, he ought to strengthen his personal wards too, as well as the ones he’d put on the Casket. 

He knew he was distracting himself with paranoia, but paranoia was as good a distraction as any. It was better than stewing over the mess of complicated emotions about Odin that Farbauti had stirred up.

Thor found him hours later, still working on the enhanced Casket wards. The binding Hrodr had laid on him would summon all of his possessions in the event of his death, but he didn’t want Thrym getting hold of the thing even if he won their duel, or managed to kill him before it happened. Loki had worked out something he hoped would prevent Hrodr’s spell from latching onto it, but it was a tricky bit of seidr, and it needed concentration.

“If you furrow your brow any harder I think that rut may become permanent,” Thor said.

It only made Loki scowl more, and Thor laughed at him and came over and kissed the crease between his brows. Loki pushed him away. He still felt unsettled and raw and he had no spare energy to decipher this thing growing between them.

“I’m trying to concentrate.”

“You have a headache right here,” Thor said, touching a spot just over Loki’s left eye. “When was the last time you took a break?”

Loki touched his brow too, and huffed. He did have a headache. With an irritated noise, he banished the remnants of the spell he’d been working on.

“Let’s go to the training ring,” Loki said. “I need to hit something very hard.”

“By ‘something’ you mean me.”

“You make such a good target. It’s the head you see, it’s so incredibly large.” Loki spread his hands exaggeratedly wide around Thor’s head, and Thor laughed again. Usually making Thor laugh would give Loki a little thrill of pleasure, but he was too out of sorts even for that, and he found Thor’s laughter intolerable instead.

“Come on,” Loki said.

Asgard’s training grounds had been outside, down by the stables away from the palace, with a view of the water and the Observatory and plenty of room for spectators. Utgard’s ring was inside the palace. It was a large room with a high ceiling and windows that didn’t start until two stories up. The walls were living ice, but the floor was soft sand. Loki supposed it made sense that it was indoors considering Jotunheim’s summer was only a few weeks long. He appreciated the privacy—no one could watch them here without entering the room, which he wouldn’t allow. With a muttered spell, he locked the door behind them.

“Blades?” Thor asked, going over to the weapon rack.

“Fists.”

Thor gave him a look. Loki glared back, hard-jawed. With an easy shrug, Thor took his side. Loki hated how relaxed he looked.

“Fists only. No cheating,” Thor said.

Loki let his voice drip with false sincerity. “I _never_ cheat.”

They squared off, facing each other across the room. Without hesitation, Loki ruthlessly went for Thor’s blind spot. Thor had anticipated it though, and blocked him with little effort. Loki launched himself back into a rapid series of exchanges where he failed to land a single proper hit, his irritation growing the entire time. He circled around to Thor’s blind side again, and grunted in frustration when Thor somehow managed to plant his boot square in the middle of Loki’s chest and send him to the sand.

“You’re not fighting me for real,” Loki said, panting. He climbed to his feet, and wiped a drop of blood from his lip where his tooth had broken the skin. Thor was fending him off, but he wasn’t engaging, and it felt patronizing in a way that set Loki’s teeth on edge.

“You’re not fighting _me_ for real,” Thor said. “Something’s distracting you.”

“I’m not distracted. I’m right here. Come on, really fight me.”

“It’s only practice,” Thor said.

“It won’t be practice when Thrym tries to murder me.”

Thor gave him a sad-eyebrow look. “Loki.”

Loki wanted to scream. He wanted Thor to _fight_ him. He wanted to let all of this heartache and confusion that had been trapped inside of him since they got here _out_. It was a storm in his chest. Thor of all people should understand that. Who was this gentle, soft creature looking at him with his brother’s eyes?

“_Come on_,” Loki snarled, his hands clenching into fists. Thor didn’t move.

He gave Loki the damned sad eyebrows again. “What is this really about?”

Farbauti’s words from earlier crowded each other in Loki’s head, and the thing that had lodged in his chest clogged his throat. How could he even begin to find the words to give it shape? The magnitude of what Odin had done to him—his abductor and his savior both—how thoroughly he had shaped every aspect of Loki’s life despite Loki’s best attempts to carve his own way, defied even the ability of Loki’s silver tongue to describe it.

And now Thor was here before him, his would-be lover, looking at him with pity and...something. Something Loki didn’t recognize, or was too much of a coward to name.

Instead of answering, Loki strode up and punched Thor square in the jaw. 

It felt good. It was always a little cathartic, hitting his brother. Loki loved Thor more than anything in the universe, but it wasn’t an easy love, and never had been. Sometimes when words and reason failed the only way to express it was like this.

“Fight me,” Loki demanded.

Thor rubbed his jaw and Loki bared his teeth and hit him again, and again, until finally with a growl Thor hit him back. Pain blossomed white-hot across Loki’s face.

“That’s more like it,” Loki said.

Loki threw himself into it with everything he had. All of his rage, and pain, and frustration—everything that he’d been experiencing unabated since they landed here—he let out through his fists. He was wild with it. An animal. A monster.

“Hit me back!” he heard himself screaming. “Make it hurt!”

“Brother,” Thor pleaded. He fought back—he had to—but his damned eyes were still so sad that it only stoked Loki’s rage higher. With a wordless howl, Loki put his head down and charged, bowling them both over to roll around on the ground, grappling. Down there in the sand, with his brother’s hands on him, his brother’s presence all around him, Loki’s rage became something else, something deeper and far more painful.

“You don’t even care,” Loki said, half a sob.

“What?”

Loki flailed his way out of Thor’s grip and managed to roll on top of him, pinning him.

“You don’t even care enough to...to fight me…” Loki’s voice was shaking.

“Loki…”

“...to fight _for_ me…” He was babbling.

Thor’s hands closed around his waist, bruising, but not to push him off, to hold him there. Loki found he’d materialized a knife, and he was holding it to the tender skin of Thor’s neck, and tears were dripping down his cheeks.

“I’ll always fight for you,” Thor said.

“You won’t! You...didn’t…” Loki’s tears were coming more swiftly now. “I was d-dead and you didn’t even c-care...you were _so angry_ to see me alive...”

Thor swallowed against Loki’s blade, but still didn’t push him away. “I was hurt...I thought you’d been hiding from me, laughing behind my back while I mourned you. I thought you’d killed Father.”

“He did that to himself,” Loki said venomously.

“I know now. I know.”

“You left me in agony on the floor.”

“You’d just tried to betray me.”

“After you’d just told me you were leaving me! Again!” Loki was horrified to hear his voice crack, and he pushed the blade harder against Thor’s throat. A drop of blood welled up.

“You baited me into that,” Thor said roughly.

The words felt like they were ripped out of Loki’s throat. “_You let me go._”

He felt Gungnir in his hand again, the lurch in his stomach when he started to fall. Felt the Kursed’s blade tear through his chest. Saw Thor’s back, walking away from him after it all.

“I’m sorry,” Thor said. Loki blinked furiously and a tear landed on Thor’s cheek. “You don’t know how sorry I am.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

Thor’s face went soft, and he finally reached up and pulled the knife from Loki’s hand. Loki let it go, let Thor toss it away. And then, incomprehensibly, Thor took Loki’s fingers and kissed them, one by one. By the last one, Loki was choking on his own sobs, and he offered no resistance when Thor took Loki’s palm and pressed it to his forehead.

“Look for yourself,” Thor said.

Thor’s memories flooded into him. 

It lasted minutes, hours, maybe centuries. Loki saw himself die, and die again. He felt like he died a third time from the weight of Thor’s grief. It was crushing, all-consuming. He didn’t know how his brother had survived through it. It felt like his heart was being torn from his chest.

He saw all of Thor’s wretched, lonely, sleepless nights, felt his guilt, his shame, his emptiness and hopeless despair; heard Thor’s pleading to an uncaring universe, _Please, we’re not supposed to be apart, I don’t know what to do without him, please, I’ll do better, please._

_Did you mourn?_ Loki heard himself ask, and shuddered.

Tears were still streaming down his face. Loki had never known. Thor was always so good at projecting an image of invincibility that Loki had never really believed anything could pierce that shell, or make him feel deeper emotions than a passing melancholy. To find out that Thor was hiding such a depth of emotion inside him, and for _Loki_ of all people, overwhelmed him. It left him grief-stricken himself that he’d misjudged Thor so badly, and hurt him so deeply.

“Brother,” Loki gasped.

Thor’s arms went around him, and Loki collapsed against his chest. All of his rage was spent. All that was left was a simple, hollowed-out creature in need of physical comfort. He felt Thor’s shuddering, tear-filled breaths underneath him, and clung to him even more tightly.

“Do you see?” Thor asked.

Loki’s voice was a scratchy whisper. “Don’t let go of me again.”

“Never,” Thor swore. “The Norns themselves couldn’t make me. I love you… I want you to know that. Even if...if sometimes I say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing, or…”

Loki raised his head and quieted Thor with a finger on his lips. Thor could have spoken those words a thousand times and a thousand times they would have fallen on deaf ears, but Loki knew now. He _knew_. Thor had told him in a soul-deep way that words could never reach. That was a gift that Thor had just given him.

“Thank you,” Loki said softly. Thor kissed his finger, and then Loki did the only thing he had the courage for, and took his finger back and kissed it as well, and then placed it back on Thor’s lips. A kiss by proxy. Even that left his insides shivering.

Gently, Thor sat them up.

“I think training is over,” Thor said.

*

They were quiet as they righted themselves and set the room in order, quiet as they walked back to the wing where their quarters were. They paused in the hallway by the door to Loki’s rooms.

Thor took Loki’s hand and rubbed his thumb along each of his knuckles. His hands were big and warm and calloused. Loki wanted to take them and put them on his neck, his cheeks. He didn’t know how to ask. If Thor wanted him to ask. If Thor burned for him as he burned for Thor.

“I suppose you’ll be going back to your own rooms,” Loki said, testing.

Thor looked up at Loki and something hot bloomed in his chest when their eyes connected. Thor’s voice was rough, and his meaning unmistakable.

“My bed is lonely. I find that I don’t want to be by myself tonight. Do you?”

Loki shook his head mutely. Thor smiled one of his heart-stopping smiles, and Loki trembled under his skin.

They went into Loki’s bedroom together. They’d shared rooms and tents and even beds countless times over the centuries, but it felt different tonight. Loki found himself balking at dissolving his armor. He turned to look at Thor, who had also paused with his buckles undone but his leather breastplate still on, and they shared a tentative smile.

“Let me fix your neck,” Loki said.

Thor lifted his chin and Loki came over and touched two fingers to the tiny cut he’d made. It healed over instantly.

_Kiss it. He’d let you._

Loki met Thor’s gaze instead. He let his fingers slide up to touch Thor’s cheek, then skim along the edge of his eyepatch, and Thor leaned into the touch.

“Help me with this?” Thor said, indicating his breastplate.

He lifted his arms over his head while Loki tugged it this way and that to wiggle it off. Thor’s chest was bare underneath. Loki wanted to press his cheek there. Hear his heartbeat. Run his lips over the smooth skin.

Loki began to draw away, but Thor caught his hand and tugged him back. He brought Loki’s hand to his lips, laying a soft hot kiss right in the middle of his palm, then nuzzled his cheek into it.

“Thor,” Loki whispered. It was getting hard to breathe.

Thor slid his hands up Loki’s still-clothed arms to cup his neck. Loki’s face started to twist, and he fell forward into Thor’s chest, hiding his distress. His oldest and most hopeless desire was coming true, and he was about to ruin it for himself, like always.

“What’s wrong?” Thor asked.

“I want…” Loki’s throat closed up, and he swallowed thickly around it. It had been eating him up ever since that first kiss on the tundra. “I _need_ you to...still be my brother.”

“Do you not want this?” Thor asked. Gentle. 

“Gods help me, I do,” Loki choked out. “That’s the monstrous part. I want both. But...I can live without this. I can’t—I can’t—”

Thor stroked his hair, his neck, wrapped his other arm around him and held him fast.

“I won’t let go, remember?” Thor said. “I have you.”

Hearing those words said aloud, with so much tenderness, knit back together a long-broken piece of Loki’s heart. He even almost believed them.

Loki hadn’t expected Thor to really understand at all. This new version of Thor still took Loki by surprise sometimes. He was just as strong, but he was quieter, and infinitely more patient, and wiser in a way that made Loki’s chest ache. It felt like this was the Thor he’d known was somewhere inside his brother the whole time, even at the height of his arrogant youth. Loki had waited so long for him. He’d gone so mad with the waiting that he’d tried to ruin everything, and had damn near succeeded.

Loki willed the tears back into his eyes. He didn’t want to cry again.

“I know that this is a sickness in me,” Loki said, pushing away and rubbing at his eyes. “To want a brother for a… a lover.” 

There. He’d said it aloud for the first time. Had just admitted the full extent of what he wanted. He blew out a shaky breath.

“If it’s a sickness, then it’s one we share.”

“How could it be?” Loki said. “When I’ve desired you since we were boys, and you never wanted me until it was perfectly clear how unrelated we are?"

Thor’s reaction was unexpected. He let out a broken, disbelieving little laugh, and ran his hand up the back of his hair, and sat down heavily on the stair leading up to the bed.

“I’d hoped, but—”

“What are you talking about?”

Thor looked at him ruefully for a moment. When he spoke, his words seemed to make no sense.

“Do you remember the time the Vanaheim court came to stay for the summer, and the prince wouldn’t stop making eyes at you?”

“Yes?” That was centuries ago. Loki would never even have recalled it if Thor hadn’t said anything.

“Do you remember why they left?”

Loki tried not to sound impatient. Could Thor not tell he was on the brink of a breakdown? What in the Nine was he getting at? “They had to cut the visit short after he broke his arm climbing in the apple orchard.”

“He hated climbing,” Thor said. “I goaded him into it.” Then, without pausing for breath, “Do you remember when I learned how to make lemon tarts over a campfire?”

“...Yes?”

“I never liked lemon tarts, or cooking. I did it because the promise of lemon tarts made you more likely to come camping with me when I asked. Do you remember how long it used to take me to learn new court dances?”

“You were an absolute buffoon. Tripped over your own feet. It would have been embarrassing to send you out in public without…” Loki trailed off, his pulse picking up.

“Without you practicing with me after our lessons, in private. Where I had an excuse to hold you. Do you remember sparring with me in the dark after everyone else had long left the training grounds?”

“Yes,” Loki whispered. 

“I’d always make sure to go late so that we’d have the bathhouse all to ourselves afterwards…”

Loki licked his lips. “I used to love that.”

“So did I. That was my favorite fantasy. I’d imagine us there in the warm water, candlelight all around, how your bare shoulders would feel under my lips when I kissed them…”

Loki was trembling. Years, _centuries_, of overly intimate brotherly affection fell into place in his mind. Things that had never made sense became perfectly clear all at once, like a torch flaring to life in a cave and illuminating the beautiful carvings that had always been there, hidden. Thor wanted him. _Had_ wanted him. It seemed impossible, but so many formerly impossible things had happened in Loki’s life lately that maybe, just maybe—

Thor rose. He tilted Loki’s chin up with a bent knuckle.

“I’ve desired this as long as you have,” Thor said. “Brother. My only shame is that I thought my feelings were unwanted, and that I kept them from you for so long.”

Loki stared at him, helplessly and hopelessly in love.

“Is it really that easy for you? Surely this is some...some _defect_...”

Thor shook his head.

“Who loves me more than you do?” Thor asked softly.

“No one. They would die of it. As I’ve almost done many times.”

“And who loves you more than I do?”

Loki swallowed. “No one else loves me at all.” 

Thor touched Loki’s bottom lip with his thumb, staring at it.

“You said you would ask me to kiss you again,” Thor murmured. “But you haven’t.”

“I’m a coward.” _Not like you._

“Would you ask me now?”

Loki shook his head, trembling. He couldn’t, not with Thor’s gaze pinning him like this, exposing him. 

Thor drew him closer, pulling him off balance enough that he had to hold onto those broad shoulders for support. Loki’s eyes fell closed in anticipation, but Thor didn’t kiss his mouth. Instead, he buried his face in Loki’s neck and pressed his lips there, soft and hot.

Loki heard himself make a noise that sounded like a whimper. “Brother, please.”

Thor seemed to take that as the request he was looking for. His lips moved against Loki’s ear, sending a full body shudder through him.

“If I kiss you, will you run away again?”

Wordlessly, Loki shook his head.

“Mmm,” Thor hummed against his skin, and kissed along his jaw and across his cheek in a hot line, just how Loki had imagined it would be, and he couldn’t help it, he gasped, just a little—and then Thor’s lips were on his, swallowing the noises he hadn’t even given himself permission to make.

It was impossible to process the reality of Thor kissing him like this, and so Loki didn’t. He closed his eyes and melted into it like snow dissolving in the warm rain. 

Thor made a noise too, a breathy groan that had Loki’s toes curling, and he pulled back just far enough to rock their foreheads together, his hand clasped around Loki’s neck.

“I wish I’d known sooner,” Thor murmured. “I’d have been kissing you until you squeaked for years.”

“_Thor_,” Loki said, letting out a horrified hysterical little laugh.

“Just like that,” Thor said, smiling. “It might even have saved me a tongue-lashing or two—”

“Oh, so it’s a tongue-lashing you want, is it?” Loki said, cheeks flaming, and pushed Thor in the chest, and Thor laughed, and Loki pulled him back in and kissed him.

Loki could scarcely believe his own boldness. Even if kisses were welcome, were wanted, he’d been holding himself back from this his entire life, and to cross that bridge himself made him feel a little wild. Exhilarated. He wanted to kiss Thor, and keep kissing him, and again and again and again until they’d made up for all the ones they’d missed. Perhaps they’d never stop.

“You’re too far away,” Thor said. Loki was in his arms; they couldn’t be any closer. Loki lifted an eyebrow at him and Thor plucked at his sleeves. “I can’t touch you.”

Closing his eyes, Loki finally let his armor dissolve away, leaving him bare to the waist in a pair of soft leggings. He kept his chin down, his breath held, while Thor slid his hands around his waist, up his sides; tugged him closer; kissed the curve of his shoulder. He shuddered out an exhale.

Thor smiled against his skin, then gathered him up until they were clinging to each other, belly to belly and chest to chest. The intimacy of every inch of their skin pressed together like this left Loki lightheaded.

“I’ve wanted to kiss that bony little shoulder for so long,” Thor said.

“Was it as good as you’d hoped?”

“Better. Come here.”

“You keep saying these nonsensical things, I’m already h—”

Thor cut him off with a kiss. “This here,” he murmured, not taking his mouth away from Loki’s.

“Mmm,” Loki said. He let his lips part, inviting Thor to deepen the kiss, which he did, running his tongue along the inside of Loki’s lips in a caress that left Loki opening his mouth wider, urging Thor in deeper.

Thor was right, this was better than anything his wildest dreams had ever conjured up. This was real. Loki touched Thor’s neck and felt his pulse fluttering in the soft skin by the apple of his throat. It was such a little thing, and yet devastating in its fragility; a reminder that his brother may be a force of nature but he was also flesh and blood and warm and responsive under Loki’s touch. Loki had the sudden mad urge to protect him. To spread his arms wide until they turned into wings to shelter over him and let no one else ever see this softness. Loki’s heart strained its bonds.

Thor pulled back and Loki tipped forward trying to chase his lips, but Thor only grinned and then scooped Loki up entirely off the ground.

“Thor!” Loki squeaked, then went red at the indignity of the sound. Thor kissed him soundly on the lips and then tossed him into the air and up onto the bed. It was an enormous thing, built for a full-size Jotun or perhaps three of them, on a platform with two stairs leading up to it. Loki landed on it with a soft _oof_, but before he could even open his mouth to lay into Thor, Thor was there as well, rolling on top of him and nuzzling his beard into the crook of Loki’s shoulder.

Loki felt laughter bubble out of him. Gods, he was happy. _Happy._ The thought was almost shocking. Happiness was something to be looked in on, maybe down on, not experienced. Not by him.

“What do you like?” Thor asked. His arms bracketed Loki’s head.

“Gods,” Loki said, covering his face. He couldn’t believe any of this was happening at all, much less that Thor wanted to _talk_ about it like it was a perfectly normal conversation.

“It’s important to know,” Thor said matter-of-factly. He rubbed his beard on Loki’s cheek until he squirmed, then kissed the spot to soothe him. “I like hands…” He took Loki’s hand and kissed it. “Mouths…” The same. “Cocks…” He pressed his hips into Loki’s, and Loki could feel the hard length of him, and he groaned. “Giving and receiving both.”

“Receiving?” Loki said. He slid his hands around Thor’s backside and gave it a squeeze. It yielded so deliciously under his hands that he nearly groaned again.

“Mmm. You don’t?”

“...I’ve never actually tried,” Loki said. “At least not with a partner. I never wanted to...to let anyone see me like that.”

Loki’s bed partners had been few, and he’d never truly been comfortable with any of them, women or men. They were a way to sate a physical desire and nothing more, and to allow any of them access to his body in such a way had never been something Loki even considered. Thor, though…

He’d spent countless hours with his own hands imagining how it might be with Thor. He imagined it now. Thor’s fingers instead of his own, Thor’s cock, his brother’s body inside him, the two of them moving together...It was almost unbearable to think about, but only because he craved it so desperately. Not tonight, though. He wasn’t ready. Not for that.

Jealousy stabbed through him that anyone had ever taken Thor like that, and hot on its heels a possessive hunger.

He squeezed Thor’s bottom again. Thor wiggled his hips against him and made them both groan, caught between laughter and lust.

“Just touch me,” Loki managed to get out. “Please.”

“Ok,” Thor murmured, nosing into his cheek to lip at his earlobe. His voice in Loki’s ear sent a shudder through him, and made all the hair on his arms stand up, and he huffed a little laugh at the ridiculousness of his body.

“Gods, you always smell so good,” Thor said. He nuzzled into Loki’s hair by his ear. “Green, and sharp...like mint, and anise, and lemon. But with a little warm spice underneath...ginger, maybe? Or cardamom.”

“You make me sound like a salad.”

“Well, I do always want to eat you, so—”

Thor mouthed at his ear exaggeratedly until Loki was laughing for real, and squirming under him trying to dig his fingers into his ribs to make him stop.

Somehow, all the times Loki had ever let himself imagine taking Thor to bed, it had never been like this. He’d conjured up all sorts of scenarios—rough, gentle, sentimental, passionate—but not this almost easy _joy_. It was surprising at the same time that it was no surprise at all, for this was how they had ever been when they weren’t at odds with each other. It was why Loki loved Thor so helplessly in the first place.

“What do I smell like?” Thor said, finally relenting in his attack.

“Hmmm,” Loki said, pretending to think. “Dirty boots, week-old milk, manure—”

Thor started tickling him, and, laughing, Loki pulled him down into a kiss.

“The sky,” Loki murmured seriously once they broke apart. He kept his hand on the back of Thor’s neck, stroking the soft little hairs where they’d been shorn the shortest. “Rain and lightning and the wind off the mountains, and…”

He buried his nose behind Thor’s ear. Closed his eyes and breathed in his scent. It smelled like a thousand summers spent together, braiding each other’s hair away from their faces, like sunlight and laughter and mischief, and made him feel like _home_ so strongly that he was surprised when he opened his eyes again that they weren’t back in the palace in Asgard.

“And?” Thor said.

Loki’s eyes had gone misty.

“Thor,” he whispered. If he didn’t say it now he didn’t know when he’d be able to again. “I love you so much.”

Thor kissed him, fierce and tender, and Loki wound his arms around his neck and held him fast. Asgard was gone and they were all they had left in the universe, and maybe that might be enough. They were here now, together, after everything. Maybe because of everything.

“Now,” Loki said, rough. “Touch me now, please, I don’t want to wait anymore, brother, pl—”

The last word ended in a groan. Thor had slid his hand down between them and run his palm down the length of Loki’s hard cock and back up again, and squeezed, and Loki nearly spilled in his leggings right then and there. Gods. That was _Thor’s_ hand on him. Loki hooked a leg around the back of Thor’s thigh and pressed up into him.

“You’re too far away,” Loki said, echoing Thor’s complaint from earlier and making him smile.

“Then get over here.”

Their hands knocked together as they both fumbled with the fastenings on their leggings. Loki gave up and let Thor do both of them, sliding his hands down the back of Thor’s waistband and dragging his loosened leggings down with them, until he had two handfuls of Thor’s bare backside.

“Up, up,” Thor muttered, until Loki lifted his hips up enough for Thor to slide his down as well. Their cocks rubbed against each other. Loki was deliriously happy.

“Gods,” Loki whimpered. Thor’s hand was so huge. He’d wrapped it around both of them at once, squeezing them together. 

“Do you have any oil?”

Loki cursed. “No.”

“Mmm,” Thor said. “Unfortunate.”

Loki didn’t feel unfortunate at all, because Thor licked his palm and brought it back to Loki’s cock. He leaned in to murmur in Loki’s ear.

“I’m going to get you nice and wet, and then you can fuck between my legs. Ok?”

“Fuck, Thor. Yes.”

Loki hooked his leg over Thor again, pressing every inch of them together that he could, seeking Thor’s mouth with his own.

_You’re too far away_, he wanted to say again. Could they ever be close enough? Would he ever be satisfied? He arched helplessly into Thor’s touch. Thor kissed his way down Loki’s body, open mouthed and wet, lipping at his nipples and navel and making him squirm and sigh, and then his mouth was on Loki’s cock and the stars realigned.

Thor was generous with his mouth and tongue and made good on his promise to get Loki wet, with his spit as well as Loki’s own slick. It was all so much. Loki pushed him off, but it was only to reverse their positions, to get Thor on his back with Loki looming over him. The sight of his brother spread out naked and wanting underneath him did something to his heart.

Thor wanted him.

Thor wanted _him_.

Thor had shared his grief, and now he was sharing his love. Loki wanted desperately to make himself worthy of both. Thor smiled up at him, warm, and Loki found himself smiling back.

He bracketed Thor’s thighs with his knees and clamped them together. He worked his cock between them, into the tight space between Thor’s legs, a secret channel made just for him.

“Oh,” Thor said, and clutched at Loki’s hips. “That’s...wow.”

“Eloquent,” Loki said. He drew back and thrust, flush against every intimate part of his brother, his stones and his hole and the soft place in between. Thor’s inner thighs trembled, and Loki squeezed his knees tighter together to hold them in place. He closed his hand around Thor’s cock and thumbed at the underside of the head, spreading around the bead of wetness that had formed at the tip.

“Brother,” Thor said, strangled. Gods. His voice. Loki had done that to him.

“Good?”

In response, Thor pulled him down into a kiss. They rocked together, mouths tangled, until Loki was mindless with it, until the only thing that existed was the sweet drag of his cock against Thor’s body, the velvet hardness of Thor in his hand, their shared breath, their groans. He wished it could last longer. A lifetime of living near the edge made his body too eager to finally take the fall, though. When he started to come, he pulled back and drove into his own fist once before spending all over Thor’s belly. He watched with his mouth hanging open as he emptied himself onto his brother’s skin.

Thor touched the wetness and then brought it to his lips and tasted it, and Loki felt his cheeks flush hot.

“Thor—”

There hadn’t been enough slickness before to touch Thor properly, but Thor reached down again, smeared his cock with Loki’s spend, and guided Loki’s hand to it. Loki thought he might lose his mind.

“I’m close,” Thor said. “Please.”

Loki shuddered out an exhale. “Fuck.”

He covered Thor’s face in kisses as he stroked him. Watching Thor spend was just as good as his own release had been. Thor’s whole body went taut, his muscles straining against nothing but his own pleasure, and the sound he made went straight to Loki’s cock, made him want to do everything all over again.

Thor nuzzled into him afterwards and they held each other for a long moment, until Loki’s emotional exhaustion caught up with him and transmuted itself into physical exhaustion all at once and he yawned.

“Get us some towels,” Loki murmured sleepily.

When Thor came back, Loki tugged him back onto the bed, and Thor wiped them both clean and then tossed the towels to the floor.

“Disgusting,” Loki said fondly. “Stay here. Sleep with me.”

Thor kissed his eyelids, his nose, the corner of his mouth, and Loki smiled into it.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

*

Loki and Thor were cradled in soft high grass, and it reached up around them in a jumble of stalks to fragment the sky into sapphire shards and cast them in lines of shadow. It felt like a nest, or a luminous green cave, and it was cool and damp and smelled like sweet new earth and the fragile white roots of wildflowers. Loki turned to embrace his brother. His fingers began to grow into vines. They twined around Thor’s arms, his ribs, wrapped around his neck with a lover’s touch. Thor’s fingers were doing the same, ensnaring Loki as surely as he was being ensnared, until they were completely grown together, inextricably tangled, and their veins ran with sap and their hearts pushed insistent roots out through their ribs. Thor kissed him. At the touch of their lips, every leaf and flowerbud furled along their bodies burst open at once, cocooning them in a transient explosion of color.

Loki woke happy and achingly sad at the same time, and he had Thor clutched to his breast.

Thor was awake as well. Loki could tell by his breathing. His arm was heavy around Loki’s waist.

“You shared my dream,” Thor said.

At Loki’s questioning noise, Thor continued. “Sometimes I have these dreams… Visions. They tell me things that will come to pass, or may come to pass… I’ve never shared one with someone else before.”

“That was a vision?”

Loki felt him nod.

“Are they literal?”

A little laugh. “Not always. Though you’d be surprised which of them turn out to be.”

Loki held him tighter. Maybe if they did grow together like that, they might finally be close enough. Maybe they’d made a start on it tonight. Visions. He wondered what other surprises his brother held.

He closed his eyes, and let the unhurried rhythm of Thor’s breathing send him back down into dreamless sleep.

*


	8. Bestla

The next morning, Loki sat leafing through the handful of correspondence he hadn’t thrown away. By the second day here he’d been provided a desk and chair of the appropriate size, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had gone and gotten him a child’s school desk. He felt like a child in it, anyway; petulant, and like he’d rather go play with his brother than deal with the papers before him, even though the new definition of “play” was enough to turn his ears hot just thinking about it.

First, a message from Hrodr:  
_Doubtless you plan to begin infusing Casket magic back into the land soon. I would very much like to be present, for academic reasons, of course, as well as a keen personal interest. If I may be so bold, I might also be able to be of service. I’ve spent the last five years doing something very similar with the Bloom. Please respond at your earliest convenience. I await your answer with no small amount of anticipation._  
_Best, Hrodr_

Another, from Angrboda:  
_Little Prince—the Rite approaches. I am familiar with the fighting techniques that may be employed against you. Should you wish to train with me, all you need do is ask. I will impart all I know. Angrboda_

Surprisingly, one from Bergelmir:  
_Prince Loki. I’m sorry to bother you with matters that might be beneath you, but Councilor Farbauti assures me that I will give no offense, and so I am writing to you. My cousin teaches a class of fifteen students in the city, and several of them swore they saw you the day you arrived here. They’re terribly curious about you, and your life away from Jotunheim, and your part in the Bloom, and they’re wondering if they can write to you, or if perhaps you’d visit their class. I understand if this isn’t possible. Thank you for reading my note._  
_My most sincere thanks,_  
_Bergelmir_  
_Assistant to Farbauti, Councilor_

The librarian:  
_I found the book you wanted._

Gunnlod:  
_You’ve got guts declining all those dinner invitations. Three quarters of the court is in an uproar and none of them have even seen hide nor hair of you. I’m impressed. We should have a drink sometime... I could learn a thing or three about your style, and I have some funny stories about your geezer too if you’re interested. If you ignore my invitation too I’ll probably laugh myself sick. Regardless, I wish you the best of luck with the Rite. Thrym’s a right nasty old bugger and I hope you do him in and I don’t care who hears me say it. Take care of yourself._  
_Gunnlod_

And the last, a torn scrap of parchment in Thor’s rushed scrawl:  
_Had to run out this morning before you were up. Think I deserve an award when I get back tonight for letting you sleep. Your choice. x_

Bergelmir’s and Gunnlod’s he set aside as not being time sensitive, but he didn’t throw them out. Against his more misanthropic tendencies, Loki liked both of them.

Angrboda’s note reminded him of the reality of the upcoming duel in a way that sparring with Thor hadn’t. He’d always sparred with Thor. Last night aside, it felt normal and safe. Fighting Thrym wouldn’t be either one of those things, and Loki would do well to remember it. The duel was only three weeks away. He’d been focused on figuring out the Casket in order to secure the goodwill of the Council and the Jotun people, but all the goodwill in the world would be moot if he ended up dead or worse.

_’The fighting techniques that may be employed against you.’_ Loki wondered how many of those techniques would be above board. He wasn’t above cheating himself, but he felt he ought to give as honest a showing as possible, to prove his good intentions. After all, no one here knew the truth of his attempted destruction, and he never wanted any of them to find out.

If an honest showing wasn’t possible he did have a trick or two up his sleeve, but it would be nice to not have to use them.

With a small amount of trepidation, Loki wrote a short note back to Angrboda accepting his offer.

Hrodr’s message was a little thornier to tease apart. Hrodr himself was still mostly an enigma to Loki. Farbauti liked and trusted Hrodr enough to invite him to dinner that first night, and he wasn’t belligerent, and sometimes he was even polite, but Loki was certain that Hrodr still didn’t trust him. Did he not believe Loki’s story about the Bloom? Or was there some other reason? Not knowing Hrodr’s motivations made Loki feel unsettled. Loki didn’t trust Hrodr either, or even necessarily like him, but he wanted to figure him out—why he acted the way he did, and whether his interest in the Casket was altruistic or academic or of a more power-hungry persuasion. Loki wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea of having Hrodr present the first time he used the Casket publicly, but measuring his response there might help illuminate him a bit more clearly.

Loki dipped his pen and wrote a response in his most elegant hand. He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake. He sighed when it was done, wondering again what exactly he was doing here, and longing to just take the Tesseract and pop across the universe. He’d take Thor with him, they could—

Something in his chest twisted, hot and sharp, and Loki clutched at his breast. The binding. Norns, was he not even allowed to fantasize about leaving?

“Quiet, you,” he muttered, “I’m not going anywhere.”

The stabbing sensation ebbed, and Loki rubbed at his chest. It was uncomfortably close to the feeling of the Kursed’s blade, which wasn’t a comparison he was keen about dwelling on.

He rose, gathering his two responses. Since he’d set the wards on his rooms to exclude servants he’d have to chase down a page somehow. Thor’s note stared up at him from the desk top, and he smoothed down the folded up arm of it and read it again. His belly fluttered with the memory of last night. This scrap of paper promised him more. It made him feel like he was on tiptoe, falling forward into something.

Thor was capable of catching him, wasn’t he? But would he be willing to?

Loki looked to the candle on his desk and briefly considered feeding the note into the flame, but then, exhaling gustily, he folded the paper back up and then vanished it into his dimensional pocket. 

Sentiment.

He locked and triple-warded his door behind him and set his feet towards the library.

*

The book the librarian had dug up for him was old, the pages brittle and threatening to crumble. Loki didn’t even dare turn them with his fingers. Over the last week he’d taken over one of the library’s alcoves and filled it with soft furs and Asgardian-sized pillows that he materialized himself, and he sat cross-legged there now, the book floating in front of him, flipping the pages with threads of seidr.

It was frustratingly hard to find anything of an academic nature written about the Casket. It seemed to be so old and so intrinsically linked to Jotunheim that it was spoken of in myth more than anything else. Loki couldn’t even get a straight story about where it had come from. Several sources had mentioned this book, though. It was slightly baffling, because it wasn’t even really a book. It was a diary.

He turned one yellowing page with seidr, and a flake of paper broke off and fluttered down.

At least the author had nice, legible handwriting. If there was anything Loki hated, it was trying to decipher illegible writing; even Allspeak was no help with that. The diary had been written by a Jotun named Bestla. He wondered if it was the same Bestla that Farbauti had mentioned as having an affair with Bor. Thor’s grandfather. Well, Loki’s too, depending on how he was feeling at any given moment. Wouldn’t that be something if it was the same person? 

This Bestla had lived for a time at a temple called Fjörran—the Hall of Life.

It was where the Casket used to be kept.

From what Loki could piece together, Bestla had been one of the Casket’s keepers. The diary was written almost entirely in poetic kennings, though, and even though the words themselves were written plainly, sometimes the meaning was impossible to decipher.

He read the entire diary three times through, then flopped back into the furs with his hands over his eyes, pressing on them until he saw colors burst. He wanted to scream with frustration. The damned Casket pulsed within its dimensional pocket, mocking him.

He been poking at the rotten thing for a week, and all he’d been able to make it do so far was infuse its life-force into one spot at a time. In his experiments at Starfall yesterday, he’d been able to bring several specks of land to life that were each approximately the size of himself, if he was lying down with his arms and legs spread out. But the entire realm was in disarray; trying to heal it one Loki-sized piece at a time would be a fool’s errand. There had to be some other way to do it. Some way that it had been done before.

If only he had another Bifrost handy.

The diary kept talking about something that was in the temple that was intimately connected to the Casket. It was unclear to Loki whether it was a person, an animal, a thing, or somehow all three. Bestla variously referred to it as a spouse, rope, thread, bowstrings, she, he, it, and they, and spoke of a hunger and also of a tide. Whatever it was, it was almost certainly one of the keys to figuring out how the Casket might connect to the land more effectively, but the diary was so vague about it that it was utterly useless except to irritate him with the promise of knowledge that was currently out of his reach.

“Aegir!” Loki called out, still covering his eyes. The librarian’s footsteps drew near and then stopped.

“Yes, Highness.”

“This diary. How old is it, precisely?”

Aegir hummed. “About ten thousand years, I’d say.”

“You’d say, or you know?”

A small laugh. “I know.”

Loki finally looked over at him. The white wisps of Aegir’s hair stuck out haphazardly today, and the spectacles he was wearing made his eyes look twice as big as they actually were.

“Do you know of any other sources contemporaneous with this Bestla? Ones that might help illuminate some of these more esoteric kennings, perhaps? Or other authors who might mention Bestla in their own work? I’m finding this diary rather opaque, as it were.”

Aegir blinked rapidly.

“I can see what I have in the archives...I might be able to send a raven to Ulfheim, see what they have there…”

Loki waved his hand tiredly, dismissing him, but Aegir just kept standing there blinking at him like some gigantic owl.

“What?” Loki said, trying not to snap.

“Highness,” Aegir said. “Why don’t you simply ask Bestla yourself?”

*

Starfall welcomed Loki back into its twilit gloom. Loki was beginning to like the place. It felt old in a way that was comfortable, like a well-worn boot.

Loki couldn’t quite believe his luck that Bestla was still alive ten thousand years after writing that journal. A hundred centuries was ancient even for Asgardians. 

According to Aegir, Bestla lived in the mountains, a full three days' ride by mammoth, and that only without stopping for rest. As much as Loki would love to take Poppy out again, the trip would take too long, and be too conspicuous. The latter was also why he decided against taking the Commodore. Banner hadn’t left yet, so it was available, but taking off in a ship would do nothing but draw attention to himself. Secrecy still seemed best at this point. Aegir had suggested sending a messenger, but Loki didn't have time for that, and he didn't trust a messenger anyway. The only person Loki trusted here besides himself and Thor was Farbauti, and him only barely.

Which left Loki only one other option.

No one had followed him here, he was certain. He’d used his glamour to leave the city, then he came halfway here in ermine form, doubled back, and transformed into a little grass snake before coming the rest of the way. Even so, he put up a ward around the temple anyway, and a silencing spell.

Satisfied that he was as hidden as he could possibly be, Loki reached into his pocket dimension.

When he opened his eyes, a glowing blue cube sat in his palm.

“Here we go,” he murmured. The hook in his chest twinged, and he put his hand to his breast. “Don’t be so touchy, it’s just a short trip.”

Between one breath and the next, he traveled.

The sudden change in temperature made him gasp. It was just above freezing down by the sea, but this high in the mountains the air was cold enough that it cut through him like a knife. He blinked, and his tears froze on his lashes. It was a clear enough morning that Loki could see the curvature of the horizon and the thin shining line of the ocean in the distance. His teeth started to chatter.

Tucking the Tesseract away, he materialized a thick fur mantle for himself and began trudging through the knee-deep snow. It would have been foolish to simply appear at Bestla’s fire, though the thought was seeming more and more tempting as his toes started to freeze.

_Stop being a coward and just turn Jotun._

He set his jaw and kept moving.

Loki had been expecting a house for some reason. A longhouse, perhaps, or a cabin. It was the same artifact of his Asgardian upbringing that had led him to imagine horses rather than mammoths. Bestla’s dwelling wasn’t either of those things. It was a tall structure made of long curved bones all angled together to meet in the center, reindeer hides stretched tight between them to make walls. Smoke drifted out of the hole in the top.

There was a little pen outside full of what at first glance looked like furry mounds of snow, and upon closer inspection turned out to be large, plump hares, their coats winter-white.

"Hello," Loki said, squatting down to pet one between the ears.

“Hello yourself,” a scratchy voice said. 

Loki straightened and turned.

“Well, aren’t you just about as big as the little end of nothing?”

The speaker was a Jotun twice Loki’s height, but bent over with age, and leaning on a knobby branch for support. Boots, trousers, and hooded coat were all white fur; Loki wondered if the clothing was made of pelts from the rabbits in the pen.

“Are you Bestla?” Loki asked.

The Jotun blinked at him, appraising, then nodded. One eye was filmy and one clear. Loki couldn’t tell if this Bestla was man or woman; the voice gave no hint and the clothing was so bulky that anyone could be hiding within it. A thought tickled at the corner of his mind. Had he even seen a single woman since he’d been here? Did the Jotnar lock them all away?

“Don’t get many visitors up here,” Bestla said. “Even fewer who know my name."

"Aegir sent me," Loki said, and Bestla's wrinkled face cracked into a gap-toothed smile.

"Is he still holed up in that library?" Bestla said.

"He is."

"I always told him some fresh air would do him good, but he was always married to books, that one. Knows the names of more dead people than live ones. He probably bleeds ink. But I'm rambling. What should I call you, little Asgardian?”

“Loki.”

Loki approached, holding his hand out, and Bestla took it, huge hand engulfing Loki’s completely.

"Well met, Loki. What brings you up old Bestla's mountain?"

“I’ve come to talk to you about your diary.”

*

Loki huddled closer to the fire, holding his hands out to warm them. Bestla's dwelling was snug inside for someone Jotun-height, but Loki found it roomy and surprisingly pleasant. For one thing, there was no enormous furniture to contend with, just furs and woven blankets and pillows, which were several points in its favor as far as he was concerned.

"Tea?" Bestla said.

Loki nodded, and was handed a hollowed-out horn of something pine-scented. It tasted like the mountains and left Loki's mouth feeling drier than before he'd taken a sip. Bestla settled across the fire, easing down with more grace than Loki expected from one so ancient looking.

"So, young Loki, what would you like to know?" Bestla asked.

Loki didn't even know where to start. How could he get the information he wanted without giving too much away? He took a sip of the astringent tea to buy a moment. Bestla and Aegir seemed like friends, so…

"Aegir gave me a copy of your diary," Loki began.

Bestla chuckled. "Not a copy. There's only the one. Gave it to the library a long time ago."

"Ah," Loki said. "Well. I was reading it, and while I did quite enjoy it, I found that some of the more, er, poetic kennings were quite beyond my ability to grasp. I expressed my confusion to Aegir and he helpfully pointed me in your direction."

Bestla took a long sip of tea from a mug the size of Loki's head.

"You came all the way from Utgard, up the Skirling Pass, past ice spiders and cave bears and frost wraiths, just to ask me about my piss-poor poetry?" Bestla said, squinting with the good eye. "Boy, I'm old, not an idiot."

Loki took a second to wonder that Aegir hadn't warned him about horrifying-sounding things like _ice spiders_ and _frost wraiths_, and resolved to have a word when he got back.

He gave Bestla his most remorseful eyes and affected a self-deprecating little chuckle at himself.

"You've caught me, my friend. I'm sorry—" Loki began, but Bestla cut him off with a grumble.

"You can leave off the theatrics as well. I appreciate the effort, but I'm tired. Just ask what you mean to ask."

Loki lowered his horn, opened his mouth, raised the horn back up again, took a sip. This was embarrassing. He hadn't felt this transparent or had his platitudes fall so flat since his first meeting with the Grandmaster on Sakaar, dazed from his fall and unsure of where he was or who he was talking to. 

Well, sometimes the truth was better than a lie, after all. Sometimes Loki even had the wisdom to know when.

"I need to know about the Casket," Loki said. "The Casket of Ancient Winters," he added lamely, as though there was any other.

Bestla hummed and took another long sip of tea. Loki fidgeted. He turned his horn around and around in his hands. He suddenly realized that no one knew where he was, not even Thor. There should be no way for him to be here this quickly, after all. 

“Can you help me?” Loki finally asked after a long silence.

“Let’s see her, then.”

“See who?”

“The Casket.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“Look, boy,” Bestla said, sighing. “I’ve been old for longer than you’ve been alive. Your little games might fool other people, but I’ve seen it all, and then I’ve seen it all again. You’re not nearly as sneaky as you think you are. If you want honesty from me, I’ll be expecting the same from you. So let’s see her.”

Loki swallowed, feeling chastised and foolish and small and hating all of the feelings equally.

Surely if Bestla tried to take the Casket from him, Loki could manage to take on one ancient Jotun by himself? And he needed this information. He grimaced and reached into his dimensional pocket and wondered how his plans always managed to go awry.

The Casket glowed blue, lit from within by the seidr that powered it. Loki set it down as quickly as he could before it forced him to transform. It cast eerie blue shadows around the inside of the tent.

“There she is,” Bestla crooned, leaning forward to stroke the Casket with one gnarled finger. The Casket pulsed and Bestla sighed in satisfaction, eyes falling shut. “I missed you.”

“How did you know I had it?” Loki asked.

Bestla’s eyes stayed closed. “I could feel her. You don’t have the kind of relationship we did without learning a thing or two about each other.”

“You speak like the Casket is a person.”

“You speak like she’s not.”

Thor used to call Mjolnir “she” sometimes. Loki wondered if it was just some instinct people had to ascribe a soul to soulless things, or if there was a deeper truth to it. If so, it was one he’d yet to discover himself.

“How did you come to be the Keeper of the Casket, little one?” Bestla asked, eyes finally opening.

“The Keeper?”

“She’s chosen you,” Bestla said. “Can’t you feel it?”

Loki couldn’t feel it, not even a little bit. He bit his lower lip, then resigned himself to displaying his deep ignorance despite how it pained him.

“What does that mean? Being the Keeper?”

“You keep her safe. You keep her happy. You keep the link between her and the land open and strong, and you protect that link, and you guide her where she cannot guide herself. What I find so curious is why she would choose an Asgardian. The Casket _is_ Jotunheim.”

“Oh,” Loki said. “Well. I’m not entirely...Asgardian.”

“Hmm,” Bestla said. “Curious, curious.”

Loki itched to snatch the Casket back and tuck it safely away, but Bestla’s gnarled hands were stroking, stroking, and the Casket was pulsing happily. Even Loki could feel that.

“Your diary,” Loki said. “You wrote of a spouse. Is that you? Or...me? The Keeper?”

“No.”

Bestla didn’t elaborate, and Loki huffed.

“She’s been gone so long,” Bestla said. “Too long. The land suffers without her, but she suffers as well. Both will end in darkness.”

“What do you mean? It—she—is back. There shouldn’t be any more suffering. Nothing has to end.”

Bestla snorted. “If you cut your arm off, would simply placing the limb next to your body in the correct place fix the damage?”

“Oh,” Loki said again. He was starting to feel like it was the only word he knew. Like everything had been one extended “oh” ever since Thor had broken his glamour on that rooftop in Asgard.

“Is this why it’s been so hard for me to recreate whatever the Bloom did?” Loki asked. “Because I’m trying to...move the fingers of a severed limb?”

“More or less,” Bestla said. “Rather less than more, but if it helps you to think of it that way…”

“How can I reconnect it then? Or can you do it?”

“I don’t know,” Bestla admitted. “None of this has ever happened before. Jotunheim wasn’t Jotunheim until the Casket, and this is the first time the two have ever been apart.”

“There must be something,” Loki said. He still wanted to know about the thing in the diary. “What is the spouse? Is it a person?”

“It’s Jotunheim.”

Loki huffed again. “But the way you spoke of it...like ropes, or a tide, or…and you just told me that the _Casket_ is Jotunheim...I don’t understand...”

Bestla’s hands spread wide, as if to encompass everything. “It’s all the same.”

Loki wanted to scream, and he hit his own thigh with his fist.

“They are one,” Bestla said. “What use to speak of a heart with no body, or a body with no heart? They’re each dead without the other.”

“No they’re not. Even humans can separate the two and bring them back together again,” Loki insisted.

“I told you that body parts aren’t a perfect metaphor,” Bestla grumbled.

“_Then stop speaking in metaphors._”

They stared at each other for a moment, and Loki tried not to look as angry as he felt. No matter how he tried to help here he was met with resistance, and he’d never taken well to being told anything was impossible. His _life_ was impossible, and yet it was happening to him, all the time, whether he wanted it to or not.

Bestla squinted. “The sneaky version of you was much nicer.”

“No,” Loki said, “he really wasn’t.”

Bizarrely, that made Bestla grin, wide and crinkle-faced. “Maybe he wasn’t. I can see why she likes you. Alright, boy. Tell me what you’ve tried so far. Have you been to Fjörran? Which ley lines are awake?”

“What is a ley line,” Loki said flatly. “And I’m not a boy.”

“Ymir’s bones, boy,” Bestla said, and at Loki’s deepening scowl amended, “_Loki_. What do they teach you on Asgard?”

“Precious little, it seems.”

Bestla rose and held out a hand for Loki’s drinking horn, which he handed over.

“Best get comfortable, then,” Bestla said. “And we’re going to need something much stronger than tea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Bestla's bunnies](https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1197372283498614784?s=20)


	9. Ley Lines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly never intended this to take so long, but the best-laid plans etc etc.
> 
> I know it's been a long time since the last update, so! A small refresher:
> 
> Thor, Loki, and the Asgardians came to Jotunheim for supplies, and stayed because of the Casket. Loki went and got himself roped into a duel with Thrym. He and the Asgardians are there as uneasy guests until the duel, which will take place after the Midsummer festival. Thor and Loki confessed their feelings and had one intimate encounter. Loki visited an old Jotun named Bestla who used to be the keeper of the Casket and found something out about ley lines.
> 
> ALSO ANOTHER NOTE: I rewrote the intimate encounter from chapter 7 (visions) because I wasn't happy with it. It doesn't change any plot and isn't necessary to reread unless you want to.

Loki returned to Starfall with his head full of new information and more questions than when he’d left. He’d stayed talking with Bestla late into the sunlit night learning exactly how flimsy his knowledge base was when it came to the Casket and Jotunheim. Bestla had needed to explain things Loki ought to have learned as a child before they could even get to the more complicated bits, and it had made Loki burn hot with embarrassment for his ignorance to be exposed so thoroughly. But embarrassment made him peevish, and the sharper his tongue grew the more Bestla was entertained, so it had ended up working out better than Loki might have hoped, and now he thought he might have the beginning of an idea for how to proceed with the Casket.

Loki scampered through the scrubby brush in his ermine form, making his way from Starfall back to Utgard. He missed the days when his brother might just swoop down with his hammer and give him a lift, and wished he could just turn into a magpie and fly back himself. Using the Tesseract to travel straight back to his rooms was also a tempting thought, but Loki was still too nervous to use it anywhere where there was the slightest chance anyone could catch him at it.

Or, even worse, where _Thor_ might catch him at it.

It had to be midnight by now. He wondered if Thor would still be awake. Thor’s note was still burned into his brain. _”Had to run out this morning before you were up. Think I deserve an award when I get back tonight for letting you sleep. Your choice. x”_

As luck would have it, Thor was entering their wing of the palace just as Loki was. His face lit up when Loki came around the corner.

“Brother!” Thor said brightly, then launched into an incomprehensible apology. “I’m so sorry, I wanted to get back sooner tonight, you would not believe the day I’ve had, I tried to leave three times, but the the nobles wouldn’t leave the gladiators alone, and the gladiators got angry, and I had to knock a few heads together, and, let me tell you, Korg may be made of rocks, but he’s the softest one there, and—”

Loki hushed his rambling with a hand on his arm.

“I’ve just gotten back as well,” Loki said.

“I didn’t want you to think I was avoiding you,” Thor said. He tilted Loki’s chin up with his knuckle, his gaze tender, and Loki’s whole body flushed with warmth.

“Not here,” Loki said.

Thor nodded and let his hand drop.

Loki was admiring the curves of Thor’s backside as he turned towards Loki’s door, and almost didn’t catch him in time.

“Wait!” Loki said sharply. He elbowed past a confused Thor, inserting himself between his brother and the door to his room.

“I thought—” Thor started, but Loki cut him off with his hand.

Loki laid his palm flat on his door and closed his eyes. He’d warded his rooms before he left this morning, three times in fact, once against physical intrusion, once against magical intrusion, and once against scrying.

All three of them were tripped.

Loki cursed, and hit the door with his fist.

“Someone’s trying to spy on me,” Loki said flatly. The wards were only tripped, not broken, which meant that whoever it was hadn’t been successful, but it still galled.

Thor sighed with relief. “Oh, is that all? I thought you were mad at _me_.”

“Is that _all_?” Loki snapped, turning around.

“Well, this was to be expected, wasn’t it?” Thor said with one of his easy shrugs. Loki ground his teeth. Of course it was expected, but it didn’t make him feel any better to have his expectations confirmed.

“Doesn’t this bother you at all?” Loki said, crossing his arms and scowling.

“Of course it does,” Thor said. “This whole thing bothers me. But it’s nice when the backstabby political intrigue happens the way it’s supposed to. It feels almost...front-stabby. It’s comforting.”

“You are truly the world’s most incomprehensible man.”

Thor stepped closer to Loki, touching his chin again and tilting his face up. “I’d rather fight every single person in this palace than have you be angry at me after last night.”

Loki couldn’t look at Thor’s earnest face without crumbling. He closed his eyes, his shoulders sagging as the tension drained out of him. “I’m not angry at you,” he murmured. Thor kissed his cheek and Loki felt his face go hot, and hated that he always wore his emotions so plainly.

“Let’s go to your rooms,” Loki said softly.

He triple warded Thor’s rooms as they entered, and then made a double of himself that he sent back out into the hallway and into his own rooms just in case anyone was watching. No sooner had he sent the thing off than Thor’s arms wrapped around his waist from behind. Loki turned in his arms and Thor kissed his jaw, which made him tilt his head and sigh, and the tip of his nose, which made him wrinkle it up.

“Talk later?” Thor said. “I’ve thought of nothing but you all day.”

“Have you now?” Loki said archly. “And I suppose you think such behavior is to be rewarded?”

“Mmhm,” Thor said. His hands on Loki’s hips swayed both of them from side to side. He leaned in for a kiss, but Loki stopped him with one finger on his pursed lips.

“I believe I get to choose the reward tonight, yes?”

Thor sucked the tip of Loki’s finger into his mouth, and Loki felt his own mouth fall open. Thor’s mouth was so warm and wet, and his tongue—it was easy to imagine that tongue doing the same thing to other parts of his body, and Loki nearly whimpered, though he managed to stop himself. The display he’d put on last night was quite enough. He couldn’t have Thor go around thinking that he had him on a string.

He realized that Thor was looking at him with amusement, and he made a face and tried to pull his hand back, so Thor held onto him and gave his finger an exaggerated suck and waggled his head. Loki couldn’t help but laugh.

“Come here,” Loki said.

He’d been so cold and frustrated all day. Thor was warm and yielded so sweetly to Loki’s gentle tug, and for a long moment they just hugged, Loki with his cheek nestled into the slope of Thor’s shoulder. He let his mind go empty. Everything else could wait. He could let himself have this right now.

“Brother,” Thor murmured into his hair. It almost sounded like a question.

Loki turned his face to Thor’s, a flower to its personal sun.

“Go to the bedroom. I’ll follow. No looking behind you.”

Thor did as he was told, and Loki trailed him.

“Stop,” Loki said when Thor was a few paces from the bed. He stayed a few paces behind, looking at Thor’s back, the soft fall of his cape, the span of his shoulders. Saw how relaxed they were. It hit him suddenly how far they’d come, that Thor would offer his back so easily. The mad creature that Loki had been under the Sceptre’s influence would have slipped a knife into Thor’s ribs right now. The one from Sakaar would have turned and left, abandoned him.

Instead, Loki stepped up behind his brother and put his chin on his shoulder and kissed his ear. Thor shivered. Loki wrapped his arms around him and dragged a finger down the center of his chest like he was pulling a zipper, and Thor’s leather breastplate parted and dissipated in a wash of green and gold seidr.

“Oh, brother,” Loki breathed. He splayed his hands across Thor’s belly, ran them up to cup at his breast and squeeze. He pressed his hips up against Thor’s backside, letting Thor feel how hard he was already.

“Like what you feel?” Thor said, pushing back against him.

Loki nipped at Thor’s earlobe and made him shiver again.

“You do too,” Loki said. He put his hand on Thor’s cock, still trapped in his trousers, which was already just as hard as his own. He bit lightly at Thor’s neck and ground his cock against him. 

“Are you going to do something with that?” Thor said a bit breathlessly.

“You’d like that, hmm?”

Loki gave Thor a little push towards the enormous bed.

“This furniture is ridiculous,” Loki huffed as they clambered up onto it. “How is one supposed to do anything with the slightest bit of panache when everything is so large?”

“Is panache really what you’re worried about right now?” Thor said, teasing. He tugged Loki towards the head of the bead, and Loki pushed him down onto the mattress and sat on him, straddling his thighs.

“Image is everything,” Loki said. He arched his back and tossed his hair to demonstrate, and Thor laughed, and then Loki shut him up with the kiss that Thor had been chasing since they met in the hallway.

He’d meant it to be short, but the first touch of their lips had him melting into another kiss, and another, and then Thor reached up to cradle his head and made an _mmm_ sound and some hard little knot deep within Loki gave way. He realized that for the first time in his life he was sure that Thor’s love for him equaled his for Thor, and he was overwhelmed with a feeling of safety, of all things. How incredible that he should find such a feeling here, surrounded by enemies on all sides.

“Stay just like this,” Loki said.

He moved down between Thor’s legs and grabbed his thighs, dissolving the rest of his clothing with a thought. Thor’s cock bobbed into the air, suddenly free of its confines. That Loki was allowed to do this now filled him with a reckless abandon, and he grasped Thor’s cock and took the head of it into his mouth with no preamble. He laved his tongue around it and Thor groaned. Loki smiled at the sound, and ran his tongue down the underside of Thor’s shaft and back up again, suckling for a moment at the tip.

Thor’s hands found his shoulders and squeezed.

“Let me taste you too,” Thor said.

Loki started to vanish his own clothing, but Thor’s hand on his stopped him.

“Let me,” Thor said.

Thor sat up, and Loki sat back on his heels, and Thor kissed his neck and began undoing the hidden clasps at the sides of his tunic. Loki closed his eyes and let himself enjoy it, Thor’s lips on his skin, his huge calloused hands unwrapping him like a gift, finding all the tender areas that he kept hidden under his armor. He shivered when the cold air hit him, but Thor was warm against him, and he pressed himself to Thor’s front to share in it.

Once they were both bare, Loki let Thor push him onto his back. He drew Thor up far enough to tongue at his cock again and was pleased to hear Thor’s breathing hitch.

“Gods, look at you,” Thor said. His hand was on Loki’s cheek, thumb rubbing over his cheekbone, and Loki looked up at him through his lashes, his mouth still stretched wide around his cock. He could only hold Thor’s gaze for an instant; it was hard to overcome so many years of repression. But that instant was all that was needed to see the naked adoration on Thor’s face, the hunger in his gaze.

Loki freed his mouth and arched a brow.

“I told you image was everything.”

Thor ducked down to kiss him again, and then he was turning himself around, facing away, straddling Loki’s body, and took Loki’s cock into his own mouth, hot and wet.

“Fuck,” Loki breathed, and felt Thor smile around him.

They sucked each other off for long pleasurable minutes. Loki took Thor’s arsecheeks in both hands and spread them, thumbing over his hole, and it made Thor writhe above him. He rubbed harder, letting the tip of his thumb breach, and it made Thor stop sucking him, made him drop his forehead against Loki’s thigh and make a sound that Loki had never heard before and wanted to hear again, immediately.

Loki slapped his flank. “On your back.”

Thor went. Loki sucked on his first two fingers until they were wet enough and then slid them into his brother’s body and watched in amazement as Thor arched off the bed and made that sound again. Loki had no choice but to kiss him for it. Thor kissed him back hungrily.

“Enjoying your reward, brother?” Loki asked breathlessly.

Thor smiled and wiggled his hips, Loki’s fingers still inside him, and Loki couldn’t help but smile back. “Immensely,” Thor said.

Loki crooked his fingers around until he found what he was looking for, and Thor bucked under him and bit off a curse, his hands tightening on Loki’s waist.

“How about now?” Loki said, the grin still on his face.

“You know that feels good,” Thor said. He clenched around Loki on purpose. “Horrible tease.”

“A tease?” Loki said with fake innocence. “What, you’d like something else in here instead? Hmm. I think I might have a wand somewhere. Oh I know! I’ll just stuff you full with your own axe handle and leave you here til the morning.”

“I cannot believe I’m in love with you,” Thor said dramatically. The words sent a full body tingle through Loki that warmed him from his heart to his stomach and left his chest feeling tight.

“Come here,” Loki said, and crushed their mouths together.

He wanted to fuck Thor, but not tonight. Instead, he kissed his way back down his brother’s body and took him in his mouth again, and fucked him with his fingers until Thor was crying his name to the ceiling and coming in his mouth. It was so satisfying to watch that Loki could have been content with just that, to leave himself unattended to and simply bask in Thor’s ample afterglow. But Thor spooned up behind him afterwards and kissed his neck and took him in hand, and, well, spending into Thor’s hand with Thor wrapped around him in a full body hug was actually much, much better.

*

After they cleaned themselves up, Thor sat on the edge of the bed, naked, and Loki, equally bare, prodded at his back with his toes. He was warm, and happy, and his problems seemed smaller than they had an hour ago.

“I didn’t tell you about my day yet,” Loki said. “I found some incredibly interesting information in the library.”

The lie was only a small one. He couldn’t tell Thor about visiting Bestla without the resulting discussion leading to the Tesseract, and he had found Bestla’s diary in the library, after all.

“Oh?” Thor said. He captured Loki’s foot and kissed his instep. His beard was ticklish and Loki couldn’t help squirming.

“Stop that,” Loki said, trying not to smile.

“That’s not what you said when I had my mouth on your—”

Loki threw a pillow at him. He knew his cheeks were red, embarrassed in a way that he hadn’t been in the heat of the moment. Would he ever cease to blush at Thor’s casual intimacy? Thor laughed and caught the pillow, and then flopped down next to Loki and kissed his shoulder.

“Tell me,” Thor said.

“Have you ever heard of a ley line?”

*

Two days later, Loki and Thor made their way from the palace through the city, out the gates, and down the spit to the area where the Statesman had first landed. They would have left earlier, but Thor had caught Loki around the waist on the way out the door and kissed him, and Loki had kissed him back, and they’d gotten delayed a good twenty minutes. Loki had never been a kisser in his life—in fact, he had always tried to avoid it as much as possible—but Thor’s were intoxicating, and he didn’t know if he’d ever get enough of them. 

As they reached their destination, Loki could only hope that he didn’t look as flushed and lovestruck as he felt. They had an audience waiting for them.

The Statesman’s thrusters had left a burned out patch in the grass somewhat reminiscent of the mark the Bifrost used to make. Heimdall and Valkyrie were there, and Loki realized he hadn’t seen them at all since their impromptu conference before that disastrous Council meeting. They were talking to Farbauti while Bergelmir hung back looking excited and anxious. Hrodr stood separate from them, staring out towards the mountains, arms crossed, tapping his foot.

Everyone was assembled.

“The man of the hour!” Valkyrie called out as they drew near. Loki tried not to roll his eyes.

Farbauti held his hands out to Loki, smiling, and Loki took them and kissed him on both cheeks. Loki had broached this idea with Farbauti over lunch yesterday and Farbauti had enthusiastically agreed. Loki only hoped that he could deliver on his promises.

_Some things never change. I’m forever trying to live up to my parents’ expectations._

The thought came unbidden, and Loki set aside the realization that he was now thinking of Farbauti as his parent as something to deal with later. Preferably much later.

Loki positioned himself facing the group with the mountains as his backdrop so that the wind off the ocean blew his cloak out behind him impressively. Thor gave him an obvious up and down look and a wink and Loki looked away from him, annoyed and pleased.

“Thank you all for coming,” Loki said. “We’re all busy people, and I won’t waste time with pleasantries. I’ve asked you here to bear witness to the start of a new age.”

Valkyrie snorted and looked like she was about to say something rude, but shut her mouth at simultaneous looks from Farbauti and Hrodr, who didn’t look amused at all.

“Your invitation said something about the Casket,” Hrodr said.

“Indeed.”

Loki held his hands before him and summoned it forth. His Jotun form took him, and he didn’t look at any of the Asgardians for their reactions. The Casket hummed happily. _Eager to get started, are you?_ Loki thought. It pulsed in agreement.

Loki had chosen this spot carefully. There were many places he could attempt what he was about to do, but this one was symbolic as well, the place where he had first touched down in the role of savior rather than destructor.

It also happened to lie directly on a ley line.

Now that he knew what he was looking for, it was obvious. It ran deep underground, past the layer of sun-warmed topsoil, past the permafrost underneath, down into the granite bones of the planet where it slumbered, a vein of seidr, ancient and dreaming. The whole planet was crisscrossed with lines like this, a spiderweb of seidr as old as the realm itself. It was different from the seidr that Loki usually manipulated, but only in the way that languages differed from one another, where a sound may be different but the meaning was the same.

“For a thousand years, the Casket has been cut off from its home,” Loki said. He met his dam’s eyes. “Let that thousand years end today, and let it be known that it was at the hand of Loki, child of Farbauti.”

He’d talked about this with Bestla endlessly, and spent all day yesterday practicing. He sent his seidr down to the ley line in greeting. It responded in the way that a sleeper might respond to an insect landing on them, a gentle rumble, a turning over, then lapsing back into sleep. The Casket leaped in Loki’s hands. The blue glow it always gave off flared and died fitfully. Loki could feel it straining towards the ley line, unable to reach it by itself.

Loki gave it a push.

As he did, he formed a bridge with his own seidr, a path for the Casket to take. The Casket’s seidr poured itself through him and down into the ley line in an ecstatic tumbling rush.

“You might want to cover your eyes,” Loki managed.

His were already closed, but the world went bright behind his lids anyway. He could hear the others crying out in wonder and pain both. He struggled to stay upright. Seidr was still flowing through him from the Casket to the ley line unchecked and it felt like it was burning him up from the inside out, or like he might be freezing solid. 

The ley line still slept.

_Come on_, he thought desperately. He didn’t know how much longer he could sustain it.

Just when Loki was about to cut it off, the ley line started to stir. He tightened his hold on the connection. He felt like he might be dying. He wouldn’t surrender his hold though, not when he was this close. Not when he could feel the ley line coming awake. It just needed...a little more... 

His knees gave way. He would have fallen but for a strong arm holding him up.

“I’ve got you,” Thor said.

Hrodr’s voice floated in as if from a great distance. “He needs help—”

“No, wait,” Farbauti said.

Loki held on for a few more agonizing seconds, but finally he could hold on no longer. With a pained cry, he let go and collapsed onto his brother.

Loki came to his senses lying on the ground with Thor and Farbauti’s concerned faces hovering over him.

“You did it,” Thor said, breaking into a relieved smile. He was clutching Loki’s hand. Farbauti was holding the other.

“Are the dramatics really necessary?” Loki said, sitting up and taking his hands back. Thor and Farbauti shared a look.

“If you want to see drama—” Thor said. He pointed over Loki’s shoulder.

Loki turned. Stretching in a line from the cliffs and disappearing towards the mountains was a road of greenery distinct from the scrubby tundra around it. There was ice as well, nothing as grand as the Tree, but fingers of it that thrust up from the ground like stalagmites that ranged in size from a handspan to the height of a fully grown Jotun. The Casket was on the ground by Loki’s feet and he felt it humming contentedly in time with the living ice. The ley line flowed underneath it all, awake now, and flowing like a wide lazy river.

“You’ve recreated the Bloom!” Hrodr said excitedly. He was already in the midst of it, caressing the ice, poking around with his seidr.

Loki wanted to fall back on the ground, but instead he got to his feet, waving off the hands that tried to help him, and tucked the Casket away into its pocket.

“Not precisely,” Loki said. “I’ve woken a ley line. That’s the real function of the Casket. It wakes what’s here already, sleeping, and then...keeps it awake.”

Valkyrie clapped him on the shoulder and almost made him stagger. “Not bad, Lackey.”

“This is wonderful,” Farbauti said, his eyes shining. “Can you wake more of them?”

“I believe so, yes,” Loki said. “Although I might need to perfect my technique.”

Thor spoke up. “Loki and I thought that perhaps he could begin traveling around doing just that.”

Hrodr turned from where he was examining a patch of thick lichen covered in tiny jewel-bright flowers. “The Rite of Blood Vengeance—”

“Isn’t for another three weeks,” Loki said. “Surely the bounds of the oath don’t restrict me from travel within the realm?” The hook in his chest twinged at the mere mention.

“The oath factors distance as well as intent. It may be possible.”

“Then we shall attempt it,” Loki said.

Most of the group began moving around the ice and greenery, examining and exclaiming at intervals, most of the exclamations coming from Hrodr and Bergelmir. Loki felt the land singing and it sent a curl of satisfaction through him. What he had done today was a good thing, even if his intentions were more self-serving than not. Thor and Farbauti still flanked him.

“I like to see you like this,” Farbauti said after a moment.

“Like what?”

“In your true form.”

Loki looked down with a start and realized that his hands were still blue.

He opened his mouth to say something, but Farbauti squeezed his shoulder and gave him a smile and moved off to examine the woken ley line himself.

Thor leaned over and murmured, “I like to see you like that too.”

Loki flushed and jabbed him in the side with his elbow and, for the rest of the excursion, didn’t change back.


End file.
